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http://www.archive.org/details/storyofbethlehemOOodon 


THE  STORY  OF 
BETHLEHEM 
HOSPITAL 


"'Why,  not  to  put  too  fine  a  point  upon  it,  this 
is  Bedlam,  sir,'  says  Mr.  Snagsby." 

Charles  Dickens,  "Bleak  House,"  ch.  xlvii. 


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THE  STORY  OF 
BETHLEHEM 
HOSPITAL 

FROM      ITS     FOUNDATION 

IN    1247 


BY 

EDWARD   GEOFFREY  O'DONOGHUE 

Chaplain  to  the  Hospital 

FORMERLY    STAPELDON    SCHOLAR    OF 
EXETER    COLLEGE,    OXFORD 


WITH  140  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW    YORK 
E.    P.    BUTTON    &    COMPANY 

681     FIFTH    AVENUE 
I915 


9Qi} 


{All  rights  reserved) 


BOSTON  COLLEGE  LIBRARY 
CHESTNUT  HIIL  MA  02167 


THIS   BOOK 

I    DEDICATE   TO   THE    SERVICE 

OF 

BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL 


/ 


PREFACE 

My  preface  shall  serve  not  as  an  introduction  to  this  book 
but  rather  as  a  farewell  to  those  friends  who  helped  in 
the  making  of  it.  Herbert  Tingle,  for  example,  read  through 
every  chapter  as  it  was  written.  To  the  touchstone  of  his 
literary  taste  and  judicial  mind  I  submitted  every  line  of 
manuscript  or  proof  In  so  far  as  I  have  succeeded  in 
making  my  narrative  lucid  or  accurate,  it  is  largely  owing 
to  him  and  another  collaborator,  Aubrey  Unthank.  I  must 
also  enter  in  my  book  of  benefactors  the  names  of  Charles 
Naish,  Charge-Attendant  A.  J.  Cantle,  Miss  F.  Bartrum, 
and  James  Arrow,  who  made  drawings  for  my  work  or 
hunted  up  references.  The  house  of  Cassell  is  responsible 
for  the  making  of  most  of  my  blocks,  and  I  cannot  pass  out 
of  the  straits  of  Belle  Sauvage  Yard  without  saying  goodbye 
to  Mr.  Martin  of  the  "Pictorial  Agency."  Most  of  the 
mediaeval  documents  were  transcribed  for  me  by  Miss  Martin, 
Miss  Salisbury,  and  the  late  Rev.  G.  L.  Hennessy.  My 
old  friend  Hennessy  was  a  scholar  who  gave  more  to  the 
Church  of  England  in  his  edition  of  "  Newcourt "  than  he 
received  from  it. 

The  whole  of  the  archives  of  the  hospital  from  the  reign 
of  Henry  VHI  to  the  year  1852  were  placed  at  my  disposal 
by  the  treasurer  on  behalf  of  the  governors.  I  was  not 
asked  to  write  to  order,  and  no  conditions  were  imposed 
on  me.  I  am  very  grateful  for  such  a  mark  of  their  con- 
fidence, and  I  hope  that  my  governors  will  consider  what 
I  have  written  to  be  worthy  of  their  kindness,  and  of  some 
value  to  the  historic  charity  with  which  they  are  officially 
associated. 


viii  PREFACE 

For   the   last   four    years,   less    three    months — from    the 

stocks  to  the  launch — I  have  been  building  the  good  ship, 

The  Star  of  Bethlehem.     They  have  been  years  of  planning 

and    shaping,   of    hammering    and    riveting,   week    in    and 

week  out.     But  I  have  not  been  without  my  holidays  and 

compensations.     I  found  my  recreation  in  the  reading-room 

of    the    British    Museum,    chasing    some    elusive    reference 

from  covert  to  covert.      And   I   had  my  festal  days  of  oil 

and    wine   among    the    muniments   of    Bridewell    Hospital, 

where  I  was  always  sure  from  my  friend  Mr.  J.  L.  Worsfold 

and    his    sympathetic    staff    of    the   warmest   of    fires   and 

welcomes. 

GEOFFREY  O'DONOGHUE. 

July,  1914. 


CONTENTS 


PREFACE  .  .  .  . 

LIST    OF    ILLUSTRATIONS    IN    THE   TEXT  . 
LIST    OF    PLATES 

CHRONOLOGY        .  .  .  . 

CHAPTER 

I.  THE    BISHOP   OF    BETHLEHEM 

II.  THE    BASILICA    AND    BROTHERS    OF    BETHLEHEM 

III.  THE    FOUNDATION 

IV.  THE    FOUNDER     .... 

V.  A    CENTURY    OF    SILENCE    AND    DISASTER 

VI.  THE    CITIZENS       . 

VII.  THE    KING 

VIII.  "TRAFALGAR    SQUARE"  . 

IX.  PETER    IN    THE    PILLORY 

X.  AN    APPRECIATION    OF    PETER 

XI.  FOES    AND    FRIENDS 

XII.  THE    CONFRATERNITY 

XIII.  RE-FOUNDED  .  .     ■* 

XIV.  THE    VINEYARD    OF    NABOTH    AT    CHARING    CROSS 

XV.  OUR    SISTER,    BRIDEWELL 
XVL       "  TOM    O'    BEDLAM  "  . 


PAGE 

vii 

xi 

xiv 

xvii 

I 

6 

i6 

26 

33 
43 
53 
64 

73 
80 

86 

96 

106 

114 

123 

132 


X 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

XVII.  CINDERELLA    AND    THE    PRINCE 

XVIII.  VISITORS    AND    NEIGHBOURS       . 

XIX.  DR.    CROOKE      . 

XX.  DR.    CROOKE AND    AFTER 

XXI.  THE    LEAVEN    OF    PURITANISM 

XXII.  LAST    YEARS    IN    THE    OLD    HOME 

XXIII.  THE    PALACE    BEAUTIFUL 

XXIV.  PRESIDENT,    PEER,    AND    PATIENT 
XXV.  A    DEVOTED    PHYSICIAN 

XXVI.  VISITING    DAYS 

XXVII.  HOGARTH  ... 

XXVIII.  WHITEFIELD,    WESLEY,    AND    AN    EARTHQUAKE 

XXIX.  "  THE    BETSY    PRIG    SCHOOL    OF    NURSING  " 

XXX.  WHEN    GEORGE    THE    THIRD    WAS    KING 

XXXI.  ST.    GEORGE'S    FIELDS    . 

XXXII.  THE    PRESENT    HOSPITAL 

XXXIII.  NIGHT 

XXXIV.  TOWARDS    THE    DAWN  . 
XXXV.  THE    CRIMINAL    DEPARTMENT 

XXXVI.  TRANSFORMATION 

XXXVII.  CHAPEL    AND    CHAPLAIN 

APPENDIXES     . 
NOTES 
INDEX 


PAGE 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  THE  TEXT 


THE   FOUNDATION   OF   BETHLEHEM   HOSPITAL  .  .  .  . 

(Drawn  by  a  •patient) 

HENRY    III    CARRYING    A    PHIAL     OF    THE    BLOOD    OF    CHRIST   THROUGH 

LONDON   TEN    DAYS   BEFORE   THE    FOUNDATION 
{After  a  inamiscript  in  C.  C.  C,  Cambridge) 

OFFERING    UP   A    DEED    OF    FOUNDATION       .... 

THE   FONT    IN    THE   CHURCH    OF   THE    NATIVITY,    BETHLEHEM 

{By  -permission  of  the  Byzantine  Research  Society) 

A  CONVEYANCE  OF   LAND    IN   SHOREDITCH   TO  THE   FOUNDER 

TALLY   STICKS 

BISHOPSGATE   IN  THE  THIRTEENTH   CENTURY 
{Drawn  by  a  patient) 

A   CITY   GATE  .  .  .  .  . 

{Block  by  Messrs.  Cassell) 

THE    HABIT   OF   THE   ORDER   OF   THE    KNIGHTS   OF   THE    STAR 

SAMPLE    PAGE    FROM    A   BOOK   OF   BENEFACTORS        . 

THE   CHOIR   OF   THE   CHAPEL   OF   THE   BISHOP  OF  BETHLEHEM,  CLAMECY 
FRANCE,    NOW   THE   DINING-ROOM    OF   AN    HOTEL 

THE   BUSINESS   CARD   OF   THE    HOTEL    PROPRIETOR 

A    MESSENGER    ,  .  .  .  . 

BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL    IN    THE    MIDDLE   AGES 

A    GAME   OF   CHESS      ....... 

{From  "  The  Game  and  Play  of  the  Chess,"  Wni.  Caxton) 

A    MIRACLE    PLAY         .  .  .  . 

A    PATIENT   AT   THE   SHRINE    OF    ST.   THOMAS   AT   CANTERBURY      . 
{"Insane  he  approaches  the  shrine:  he  retires  in  his  right  mind" 

xi 


PAGE 
17 


23 

24 

27 
29 
31 

38 


• 

40 
46 

'  i 

50 

51 

• 

53 

56, 

57 

• 

59 

. 

62 

70. 

71 

xii  ILL  US  TRA  TIONS 

PAGE 
CHAPTER    HOUSE,    WESTMINSTER   ABBEY        .  .  .  .  -77 

PETER,    THE    PORTER  .  .  >    .  .  ,  .  -78 

ST.    GUTHLAC   AS   AN    EXORCIST  .  .  .  ,  .  .87 

{Reproduced  by  Messrs.  Cassell  from  Harley  Roll  Y,  6) 

THE   ATTACK    ON    BISHOP's    GATE,    I47O  .  .  .  .  -93 

THE     COMMON     SEAL     OF     BETHLEHEM     HOSPITAL     IN     THE     REIGN     OF 

HENRY    VI,    OR    HENRY    VII  .  .  .  .  .  -94 

PHYSICIAN    AND    PUPIL  .......         98 

ORDER    OF    ADMISSION     INTO    THE     CONFRATERNITY     OF     ST.     MARY     OF 

BETHLEHEM  ........       lOO 

{From  a  black-letter  broadside  in  the  British  Museum) 

THE    PRE-REFORMATION    ARMS   OF    BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL  .  .       IO3 

THE    PRESENT   ARMS    OF    BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL      «...       IO4 
{Drawn  by  a  patient) 

JOHN    SKELTON,    THE    POET   .......       I08 

{Reproduced  by  Messrs.  Cassell  from  his  "  Garlande  of  Laurel,"  1523) 

A    SURVEY    OF   THE    CHARING    CROSS   ESTATE    IN    1649  .  .  .1X6 

{From  a  lease  at  Bridewell  Hospital) 

I 
CHARING  CROSS,    I560  .  .  .  .  .  .  .       I20 

FROM    A    BRIEF    ISSUED    BY    ELIZABETH  .....       I24 

{By  permission  of  Messrs.  A.  &  C.  Black) 

THE      TITLE-PAGE     TO     THE     FIRST     EDITION    (1549)    OF     THE     BOOK     OF 

COMMON   PRAYER  .......       I27 

A    PAGE    FROM    THE    MUNIMENT    BOOK    AT    BRIDEWELL         .  .  .       I30 

THE    "COUNTERFEIT   CRANKE  "    IN    TWO   CHARACTERS        .  .  .       I36 

THE    "  COUNTERFEIT   CRANKE  "    IN   THE    PILLORY  .  .  .       I38 

{Both  illustrations  are  reproduced  from  the  original  drawings) 


*'THE    KNAVE    OF   CLUBS'    :    A   TITLE-PAGE 

**THE    BELMAN    OF   LONDON  "  :    A   TITLE-PAGE  .  ^      . 

CARVINGS    FROM    A    HOUSE    IN    BISHOPSGATE 

BRIDEWELL    HOSPITAL    IN    THE   TUDOR   AND    STUART    PERIODS 

TITLE-PAGE   OF    "THE   ANATOMY    OF    MELANCHOLY" 

TITLE-PAGE   OF    A    PAMPHLET   AGAINST    FARNHAM 


146 
149 

159 
162 
170 


STRANGE     AND     WONDERFULL      PROPHESIES     BY    THE    LADY     ELEANOR 

AUDELEY  "  .......  174,    175 


ILLUSTRATIONS 


Xlll 


A    PLAN   OF   THE    "GOAT        TAVERN,    CHARING   CROSS 
TAVERN   TOKENS  ..... 

VIEW   OF    BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL    IN    1667     . 


PAGE 
.       180 

.       183 
.       196' 


PLAN   SHOWING  THE    SITE    OF    THE    FIRST   HOSPITAL  WITH    ITS   MODERN 

SURROUNDINGS  .......      I98 

GROUND      PLAN     OF     THE     INSANE     WARDS     OF     THE     FIRST      HOSPITAL 

BETWEEN    1644   AND    1675  •  •  •  •  •  200,    20I 

THE   ARMS   OF    ENGLAND    IN   THE    REIGN    OF    HENRY   VIII  .  .  ' .       207 

"BETHLEHEM'S    BEAUTY"     .......       2IO 

{From  a  contemporary  broadsheet) 

FROM   A    PAGE   OF   SIR   W.    TURNER'S    LEDGER  ....       214 

"an    ELEGY   ON   THE   DEATH    OF   SIR   W.   TURNER"  .  .  .       215 

A   PAGE    FROM    A   SATIRE   ON   THE    DEATH   OF   THE   SAME    .  .  .      2l6 

"bedlam    broke   loose":    a   TITLE-PAGE  ....      2l8 

"  LUCIDA    INTERVALLA":    POEMS   WRITTEN    AT    BETHLEM    IN    1679  .      221 

THE    MONUMENT   TO    DR.    TYSON    .  .....      228 

AN    ENTRY    IN    THE   STEWARD'S   ACCOUNTS  RELATING  TO  NATHANIEL  LEE      23 1 
"  BETHLEM  "  :    A    POEM    SOLD   TO   VISITORS 
"a   VISIT   TO   bedlam"  .  -. 

THE   THERMOMETER   OF    FANATICISM 

DR.  JOHN    MONRO   AND   CHARLES  J.    FOX 

THE   CENTRE   BLOCK   OF   THE   SECOND    HOSPITAL     . 

"low   life":    a   TITLE-PAGE  .... 

A   PAGE    from    THE    "  SONG   TO   DAVID " 

"COOLING    HIS    brains":    A   CARICATURE 

AN    ENTRY    IN    THE   ADMISSION    BOOK    RELATING   TO   HANNAH   SNELL 

THE   TITLE-PAGE   OF    "THE    FEMALE   SOLDIER" 

A   CARD   OF   ADMISSION,    I794  .... 

"a    peep    INTO   BETHLEHEM"  .... 

PLAN    OF   BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL   AND    ITS    GROUNDS,    1815 

PLAN    OF   THE   GROUNDS    AFTER    1839 


•   237 

•   239 

•   256 

•   257 

.   260 

.   262 

.   270 

•   273 

lELL 

.   279 

.   280 

.   282 

.   284 

-   293 

•   295 

XIV 


LIST   OF  PLATES 


STONE   SIGN    OF   THE    "DOG    AND    DUCK        TAVERN 

THE    INTERIOR   OF   THE    "LONG    ROOM"    IN    THE   SAME   TAVERN 

GROUND   PLAN   OF   BETHLEHEM   HOSPITAL   IN    1823 

PROPOSED   PLAN    FOR  THE  THIRD   HOSPITAL  .         -        .' 

WILLIAM   TUKE  ...... 

SURVEY    OF   THE   CHARING    CROSS    ESTATE,    183O      . 
{From  a  Bridewell  document) 

THE   AWARD   OF   THE   ARBITRATOR    .... 

THE    FEMALE    CRIMINAL    BLOCK  .... 

A    DOSE   OF    IRON — OLD    STYLE  :    A    DOSE    OF    IRON — NEW   STYLE 
(By  permission  of  the  family  of  the  late  G.  H.  Haydon) 

A   WINDOW-GUARD    IN    1838  . 

PLAN    OF   THE   LIVERPOOL   STREET    ESTATE,    1865-1870 

(From  a  conveyance  at  Bridewell) 

PLAN    OF    WARD    NO.    5  .  .  .  . 


PAGE 

•   297 

.   300 

.   305 

.311 

•   323 

.336 

•  337 

•  341 

•  347 

•   '  •  355 

360,  361 

363 


PLAN     OF     THE     DEVONSHIRE     HOUSE     ESTATE      IN      THE      EIGHTEENTH 

CENTURY,    BISHOPSGATE  .  .  .  .  .  .      369 


LIST    OF   PLATES 


BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL,    THE   SECOND,    IN    MOORFIELDS 
BETHLEHEM    (PALESTINE)  :    ITS    BASILICA   AND    MONASTERIES 


Fi'ontispiece 

FACING   PAGE 
2 

6 


BASILICA   OF   THE   CHURCH    OF    THE   NATIVITY,    BETHLEHEM  :    THE    NAVE 
(By  permission  of  the  Byzantine  Research  Fund) 

A   REQUIEM    MASS         .  .  .  .  .  .'  .  -3^ 

THE    DEVONSHIRE   HOUSE    ESTATE   OF   THE    HOSPITAL    IN    BISHOPSGATE     .         36 

THE     TWO     CONFRATERNITIES     OF     THE     SKINNERS'     COMPANY     IN     PRO- 
CESSION ON  CORPUS  CHRISTI  DAY        .  •  between  pp.  54  and  55 

.     60 


BANNER   CARRIED   BY  THE  CONFRATERNITY   OF   CORPUS   CHRISTI 

THE    ROLL   OF    *'  THE   VISITATION    OF    BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL  "       . 

THE   OLD    "white    HART"   TAVERN  .... 

(After  a  drawing  by  T.  H.  Shepherd,  before  it  was  pulled  down  in  1829) 


84 
84 


LIST  OF  PLATES 


XV 


FACING  PAGE 
THE    SEAL    OF    THE    WARDEN    OF    THE    HOUSE    OF    THE    BLESSED     MARY 
OF    BETHLEM         .... 


BISHOP  S   GATE   AS    RESTORED    IN    I479 

SIR    MARTIN    BOWES    .... 

CHARING   CROSS    IN    THE    REIGN    OF    EDWARD   VI 

LIEUT.-COL.    A.  J.    COPELAND,    F.S.A.,    TREASURER 

DELUSIONAL    INSANITY 

TRADING    ON    INSANITY 

(T/ie  illustrations  of  pp.  132  and  134  were  drawn  by  Charge-Attendant  A.  Cantle) 

THE   SIGN-BOARD    OF   THE    "TOM    IN   BEDLAM,"    REDBOURNE 

DR.    CROOKE,    KEEPER   OF    BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL    . 

DANIEL,  Cromwell's  porter         .... 

HOUSE  of  SIR    PAUL   PINDAR,    BISHOPSGATE 

SIR   GEORGE   WHITMORE  ..... 

{By  permission  of  Major  Whitmore,  Orsett  Hall,  Essex) 

ANOTHER    PORTRAIT   OF    DANIEL        .... 

{After  a  unique  print  in  the  Guildhall  Museum) 


102 
102 
112 
114 
124 
132 

140 

168 
179 

179 


BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL,  THE   SECOND,  IN    MOORFIELDS     between  pp.  202  and  203 

.      204 


THE   ENTRANCE  ........ 

(This  plate,  with  which  W.  M.  Craig  illustrated  one  of  the  "  Cries  of  London,"  is  to 
be  found  in  "  Modern  London,"  Richard  Phillips,  1804) 

DEMENTIA   AND    ACUTE    MANIA  .... 

(Drawn  by  T.  Stothard  and  engraved  by  W.  Sharp,  1783,  to  illustrate  T.  Bowen's 
"Historical  Account") 

FIGURES   WITH    ALMS   BOXES  .... 

porter's  STAFF  (see  p.  206)  .  .  .  . 

THE    FUNERAL   EFFIGY   OF   SIR   W.   TURNER 

SOUTH-WEST   CORNER   OF   THE   SECOND    HOSPITAL,    1814      . 

The  large  window  at  the  side  belongs  to  the  female  incurable  ward.  The  wall 
below  it  is  covered  over  with  the  remains  of  many  posters  of  1814.  In  the 
original  etching  of  J.  T.  Smith  the  words  "  Vauxhall,"  "  Bible  Society  Jubilee," 
and  "Pagoda"  may  be  discerned.  To  the  left  of  these  notices  a  bill-poster  is 
at  work.     He  is  standing  on  the  site  of  Moor  Gate,  which  was  demolished  in  1762. 

NATHANIEL  LEE,    THE   DRAMATIST 

JACK   SHEPPARD    VISITS    HIS    MOTHER    IN    BEDLAM  .... 

"a    rake's   progress":    PLATE   VIII  .  .  .  . 

(^After  the  original  painting  in  the  Soane  Museum) 


204 

205 
208 
222 

222 


230 
242 


XVI 


LIST  OF  PLATES 


THE   SAME        ....... 

{After  the  engraving  :  first  "  state  ") 

THE  SAME       ....... 

(After  the  engraving:  second  "state") 

A   PIRATICAL   IMITATION   OF  THE   ENGRAVING 

"HOGARTH    IN   BEDLAM":    A   PARODY 

THE    porter's    BADGE  .  .  .  . 

"HARLEQUIN    METHODIST"  .... 

"the    MILITARY    PROPHET  "  .... 

THE   BACK   OF    BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL,    THE    SECOND,    l8l2 


FACING  PAGE 

•  244 

.  247 

.  247 

•  250 

•  253 

•  253 
.  258 
.  266 


BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL,    THE    SECOND,    WITH     THE     INCURABLE    BLOCKS 

{see  p.  244)  .....        between  pp.  276  and  277 


PHYSIC   AND   A  STRAIT   WAISCOAT   FOR   PITT  :   A  CARICATURE 

HANNAH    SNELL,    A    PATIENT  ..... 

"A   STUDY    IN   BETHLEM   HOSPITAL"  .  .    *  . 

THE    "dog   AND    DUCK  "   TAVERN,    1646       .... 

BETHLEHEM     HOSPITAL,     THE     THIRD,     IN     SOUTHWARK,    BETWEEN    181 
AND    1838  .  .  .  .  .  . 

THE   GENIUS   OF    CHARITY      .  .  .  . 

(Adapted  from  a  group  fainted  by  T.  S.  Duche  in  1792) 

BETHLEHEM   HOSPITAL,    THE  THIRD,    WITH   THE   DOME   OF    1846 

THE    INSANITY    OF   GEORGE    III 

JAMES    NORRIS,    A    PATIENT    . 

PHILIPPE    PINEL,    THE    DELIVERER 

JOHN    HASLAM,    "APOTHECARY" 

CHARING    CROSS    ABOUT    1825 

A    FEMALE   WARD    (f.  2)    IN    1860 

IN   THE   OLD    BALL-ROOM,    1859 

THE   WORK-ROOM    OF    F.  2      . 

(After  a  photograph  taken  by  Dr.  J.  G.  Porter  Phillips) 


278 
278 
288 
296 

302 
308 

308 
316 
320 

324 
326 

334 
351 
354 
368 


CHRONOLOGY 


The  year  is  computed  throughout  from  the  ist  of  January  : 
c  stands  for  circa  (about). 

330. — Basilica  of  the  Nativity  (the  mother-house  of  the  hospital)  built 

in  Bethlehem,  Palestine,  by  the  Emperor  Constantine. 
1216-1227. — Pope  Honorius  III  grants  an  indulgence  to  the  monastery 

of  St.  Mary,  Bethlehem,  Palestine,  and  its  daughter-houses. 
1247  (Sept.  23). — Henry  III  grants  a  "protection  without  term"  for 

the  brethren  of  the  house  of  "  Betlecm." 
1247  (Oct.  23). — Foundation  of  the  priory  of  St.  Mary  of  Bethlehem 

in  Bishopsgate  Without,  London. 
1257  (May  20). — Henry  III  grants  "protection  to  the  brethren  of  St. 

Mary  of   New   Bethleem,   dwelling  or   to  dwell    in    London, 

without  Bishopsgate." 
1302.— The  brothers  of  Bethlehem  (Palestine)  are  said  to  be  "roaming 

up  and  down  England,  collecting  alms  and  granting  absolution, 

where  they  ought  not." 
1329. — Edward  III  grants  a  protection  to  the  Bishopsgate  "  hospital " 

{i.e.,  hospice). 
1346  (Oct.    15). — The   house   and   order   taken    under   the    patronage 

and   protection   of   the   mayor  and   aldermen   of    the   city    of 

London. 
1346  (Oct.  20). — Agreement  made  between  Richard  Lacer,  the  mayor, 

and  citizens  of  London  and  the  master  (Norton)  and  brethren 

of  the  house,  touching  the  maintenance  and  government  of  the 

hospital. 
1361. — The  drapers  of  Cornhill  enrol  themselves  in  the  confraternity  of 

St.  Mary  of  Bethlehem,  and  annually  meet  on  the  Feast  of  the 

Purification  (Feb.  2)  to  hear  mass  in  the  hospital  chapel. 
1362. — Agreement  between  the  hospital  "  de  Bedelem  "  and  the  rector 

of  Bishopsgate  about  parochial  dues. 
1363. — Urban  V  grants  an  indulgence  to  all  who  help  for  ten  years  in 

the  restoration  of  the  house. 


xviii  CHRONOLOGY 

1367. — The  mayor  and  aldermen  urge  the  bishop  of  "  Bedlem,"  then 
resident  in  France,  not  to  farm  out  their  London  hospital. 
Edward  III  orders  the  arrest  of  the  master  and  proctor  of  the 
hospital  for  obtaining  money  by  forged  indulgences.  They 
are  to  be  taken  before  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury. 

1375. — The  hospital  seized  as  an  alien  priory  by  Edward  III. 

1375-1378  (?). — The  patients  of  the  "  Stonehouse,"  Charing  Cross, 
removed  to  Bethlehem  Hospital. 

1377. — Earliest  known  date  of  the  use  of  Bethlem  as  an  asylum. 

1380-1395  (c). — A  brotherhood  of  Skinners  meet  in  the  church  of  St. 
Mary,  Bethlehem,  on  Corpus  Christi  Day. 

1403  (March  2). — Henry  IV  issues  a  commission  to  two  of  the  royal 
chaplains  to  investigate  charges  made  against  the  management 
of  the  hospital.  Their  report  mentions  six  insane  patients,  the 
instruments  of  their  restraint,  and  the  hospital  property  at 
Charing  Cross. 

1408. — John  Gower,  the  poet,  leaves  a  legacy  to  Bethlem. 

1437. — Commission  to  the  mayor  and  aldermen  to  inquire  into  abuses 
at  the  hospital. 

1454. — Hospital  and  its  property  farmed  out  by  its  master. 

1457. — John  Arundell,  doctor  of  medicine  and  royal  physician,  appointed 
master. 

1519. — Date  of  a  certificate  of  admission  into  the  confraternity  of  St. 
Mary  of  Bethlem. 

1529. — George  Boleyn,  brother  of  Queen  Anne  Boleyn,  appointed 
master. 

1^43. — The  convocation  of  Canterbury  denounces  the  "ungodly  cele- 
bration of  marriages  "  in  Bethlem  Hospital. 

1545. — Peter  Mewtys,  the  master  of  Bethlem,  grants  a  lease  of  the 
"Stone  House,  Charing  Cross,  recently  converted  into  three 
tenements"  [now  Trafalgar  Square]. 

1546  (Dec.  27). — Deed  of  covenant  between  Henry  VIII  and  the  city, 

by  which  the  king  agrees  to  grant  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital 
to  the  city  :  "  and  the  king  further  granted  that  the  said  mayor, 
commonalty,  and  citizens,  and  their  successors  should  be 
masters,  rulers,  and  governors  of  the  hospital,  or  house,  called 
Bethlem." 

1547  (Jan.  13). — Letters  patent,  ratifying  the  deed  of  covenant,  granted 

by  Henry  VIII,  who  dies  seventeen  days  later. 
1549  (May  7). — The  court  of  aldermen  order  the  chamberlain  to  repay 

Sir  Martin  Bowes  £\\'^  6s.  8d.,  which  he  had  expended  for  the 

purchase  of  Bethlehem  Hospital. 
1550. — The  liberty  of  Bethlem  merged  into  the  parish  of  St.  Botolph, 

Bishopsgate. 
1553  (June  26). — Bridewell  Hospital  incorporated  by  letters  patent. 


CHRONOLOGY  xix 

1556. — Two   aldermen    and    the    chamberlain    are  to   "examine  the 

accounts  of  the  hospital  as  kept  by  the  keeper." 
1557  (Sept.   27). — Bethlem    placed    under   the  same  management  as 

Bridewell. 
1563. — "Dickon  of  Bedlam,"  one  of  the  earliest  of  English  comedies, 

composed. 
1569. — Sir  T.  Roe,  mayor,  causes  an  acre  of  ground  in  Bethlem  (now 

part  of  Broad  Street  station)  to  be  enclosed  as  a  churchyard  for 

strangers. 
1575. — Old  church  of  monastery,  after  serving  as  a  foundry,  pulled 

down,  and  a  dozen  houses  erected  in  its  place. 
1604. — Dekker,  the  dramatist,  lays  many  scenes  of  one  of  his  plays  in 

the  hospital. 
1606. — The   treasurer  granted   the  revenues  of   eleven  tenements  in 

Bethlem  "in  consideration  of  his  devotion." 
1609. — The  keeper  to   be  paid  sevenpence  instead  of  sixpence  each 

patient  per  week  "on  account  of  the  dearness  of  the  times." 
1619. — Hilkiah  Crooke,  M.D.,  elected  "keeper." 
T620. — Yelverton,  the  attorney-general,  sent  to  the  Tower  for  corruptly 

inserting  in  a  city  charter  certain  clauses  granting  the  corpora- 
tion the  custody  of  Bethlehem  Hospital. 
1630. — Accounts  of  Bethlem  first  separated  from  those  of  Bridewell. 
1632  and   1633. — Royal    commissioners    investigate    scandals    in    the 

hospital. 
1638. — Charles  I  confirms  the  charter  of  the  hospital. 
1648. — Arbitration  between  hospital  and  its  tenants  in  reference  to 

property  at  Charing  Cross. 
1656. — Daniel,  Cromwell's  porter,  admitted  as  a  patient. 
1666. — The  fire  of  London,  which  destroys  Bridewell,  spares  Bethlem. 
1674. — Suggested  that  hospital  be  removed  to  another  site.     Petition  to 

be  presented  to  Charles  II  for  his  "approbation  and  allowance." 

Lease  of  lands  in  Moorfields  granted  by  the  city  corporation  to 

the  governors  for  the  erection  of  a  new  hospital. 
1675. — Begun   in   April,  1675,  the   main   buildings  of   the  second,  or 

Moorfields,  hospital  were  finished  in  July,  1676. 
1684. — Nat  Lee,  the  dramatist,  a  patient. 
1693. — A  nurse  to  be  hired  "as  an  experiment." 
1699. — Report  of  Bethlem  committee  on  the  discreditable  appearance 

of  the  wards  on  public  holidays. 
1700. — An  out-patient  department  instituted.     The    word  "patient" 

henceforth  used  to  describe  the  inmates. 
1714. — Dean  Swift  elected  a  governor. 

1 725-1734. — Wards  for  male  and  female  incurable  patients  constructed. 
1732-1733. — Hogarth    paints    "Bedlam" — the    eighth    scene    of    the 

"  Rake's  Progress." 


XX  ,        CHRONOLOGY 

1733. — Edward  Barkham,  of  The  Close,  Lincoln,  leaves  part  of  his 
Lincolnshire  estates  for  the  maintenance  of  incurable  patients. 

1766. — The  doors  of  the  hospital  to  be  locked  on  public  holidays 
against  all  visitors. 

1770. — Admission  of  visitors  henceforth  to  be  only  by  ticket,  and 
accredited  visitors  to  be  accompanied  by  an  attendant. 

1782. — An  act  of  parliament  ratifies  the  union  of  Bridewell  and 
Bethlem,  and  settles  the  dispute  between  the  common  council 
and  other  governors. 

1791. — Hannah  Snell,  the  female  marine,  a  patient. 

1800. — Architect  reports  the  hospital  to  be  in  an  insecure  condition. 

1800-1809. — Negotiations  about  a  new  site. 

1812-1815. — Building  of  present  hospital  (the  third)  in  St.  George's 
Fields,  Southwark.     Patients  transferred  24  Aug.,  1815. 

1815  and  1816. — Parliamentary  inquiries  into  the  treatment  of  patients. 

18 16. — Criminal  blocks  completed  and  occupied. 

1830. — Exchange  of  the  "  Trafalgar  Square"  estate  with  the  Crown  for 
property  in  Piccadilly. 

1837. — Visitation  by  Mr.  F.  O.  Martin,  a  charity  commissioner. 

1838. — Front  garden  leased  by  city  to  hospital  and  road  diverted. 
Foundation  stone  of  new  buildings  laid.  Frontage  extended 
east  and  west,  and  southern  wings  lengthened. 

1840. — Site  of  Barkham  Terrace  purchased. 

1844. — First  padded  rooms  constructed:  workshops  for  patients  com- 
pleted. 

1544-1846. — Chapel  and  dome  built  by  S.  Smirke. 

1851  (June  28). — Visit  of  lunacy  commissioners  to  inquire  into  allega- 
tions against  the  treatment  of  certain  patients  by  their  nurses. 

1853  (Nov.  i). — Hospital  registered  for  periodical  inspection  by  the 
lunacy  commissioners. 

1863  and  1864. — Criminal  patients  removed  to  Broadmoor. 

1864. — On  the  recommendation  of  the  charity  commissioners  governors 
agree  to  select  a  site  for  a  convalescent  home  and  to  appoint 
resident  clinicals. 

1865-1870. — The  Liverpool  Street  estates  of  the  hospital  purchased  by 
the  Great  Eastern  and  the  Metropolitan  Railway  Companies. 

1870. — First  party  of  convalescent  patients  goes  to  Witley,  Surrey. 

1892. — Under  the  Dome  (the  hospital  magazine)  first  issued. 

1896. — Recreation  hall  opened. 

1904. — Hospital  closed  from  February  to  October  for  re-drainage  and 
repairs. 

1907. — Fire  causes  some  damage  to  recreation  hall. 

1912. — Pathologist  and  other  specialists  added  to  the  medical  staff. 


The  Story  of  Bethlehem  Hospital 
from  its   Foundation  in    1247 

CHAPTER    I 

THE  BISHOP  OF  BETHLEHEM 

"  Let  us  go  even  unto  Bethlehem  " — this  is  the  journey 
we  must  take  in  the  first  chapter  of  our  history.  For  the 
basilica  which  enshrines  the  cave  of  the  Nativity  is  the 
goal  of  our  pilgrimage.  Here  was  the  home  of  our  early 
associations,  and  we  return  to  it,  after  six  centuries  and  a 
half,  to  hear  all  that  has  happened  since  the  daughter  left 
her  mother's  house.  We  are  not,  indeed,  without  guide- 
books, for  such  scholars  as  Comte  P.  Riant,  M.  Delaville 
Le  Roulx  and  Father  Meistermann  have  smelted  gold  even 
from  the  dust  of  libraries.  Itineraries  of  pilgrims,  chronicles 
of  the  crusades,  the  registers  of  the  popes,  and  the  archives 
of  monasteries  have  all  been  shaken  well.  I  shall  not,  as 
a  rule,  interrupt  the  narrative  by  a  reference  to  a  book 
or  manuscript,  but  the  story  I  am  now  going  to  tell — no 
one  in  London  has  told  it  before — is  founded  on  the  Papal 
Registers  of  Innocent  IV. 

The  villain  of  the  drama  was  one  John  the  Roman,  who 
appears  to  have  been  elected  in  1239  bishop  of  Bethlehem 
by  the  canons.  In  the  ordinary  way  his  election  would 
have  been  confirmed  by  the  pope.  But,  meanwhile,  he 
proceeded,  with  the  complicity  of  some  of  the  canons,  to 
sell,  pledge,  or  exchange,  houses,  castles,  lands,  relics  and 
indulgences — the  property  of  the  see.     The  church  possessed 


2     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

certain  precious  relics,  which  fell  to  it  as  a  share  of  the 
spoils  from  the  sack  of  Constantinople  in  1204.  These  were 
the  hammer  and  a  nail  of  the  crucifixion,  with  the  hand 
of  St.  Thomas.  Even  these  had  gone  into  the  sack  with 
the  title  deeds  of  the  convent  lands,  and  were  pledged 
with  the  Templars  and  other  religious  orders  for  a  con- 
siderable sum  of  money.  It  is  not  pleaded  on  behalf  of 
these  sacrilegious  rogues  that  they  spent  it  on  the  ransom 
of  the  church  and  the  pilgrim  :  they  just  "  dissipated  it 
themselves." 

We  may  note  here  that  in  1869  some  old  relics  of  the 
church — a  pair  of  chandeliers  and  two  copper  basins  of 
twelfth-century  work — were  dug  up  in  an  ancient  cloister 
which  formed  part  of  the  Franciscan  church  of  Bethlehem. 
The  base  of  each  chandelier  was  inscribed :  "  Cursed  be 
he  who  removes  me  from  the  place  of  the  Holy  Nativity, 
Bethlehem."  Possibly  this  is  an  allusion  to  the  depre- 
dations of  John  the  Roman,  and  they  may  have  been 
returned  to  the  basilica  by  Godfrey,  who  helped  to  found 
the  priory  of  Bethlehem,  London,  for  it  was  he  who  had 
to  restore  a  church  very  much  injured  by  "  men  who  know 
not  the  way  of  the  Lord,"  and  to  redeem  as  much  of  the 
treasure  and  property  of  the  basilica  as  was  still  in  the 
market. 

The  pope  pronounced  all  contracts  entered  into  by  John 
the  Roman  to  be  null  and  void.  But  John  and  his  accom- 
plices had  spent  the  money,  and  the  church,  which  had 
fallen  among  bandits,  lay  by  the  roadside  stripped  of  its 
raiment.  Moreover,  in  1244,  before  any  good  Samaritan 
could  come  to  its  aid,  the  Kharasmians — a  wild  horde  of 
Mohammedans  from  Central  Asia — fell  upon  Bethlehem 
and  left  its  convent,  if  they  spared  its  church,  despoiled 
and  in  ruins  :  it  seemed  as  if  religion,  beaten  and  half  dead, 
must  perish. 

In  this  eclipse  of  their  fortunes,  the  chapter  urgently 
appealed  to  Pope  Innocent  IV  to  come  to  their  succour.  In 
his  reply  he  called  upon  them  to  elect  as  their  bishop  his 
chaplain,  Godfrey  de  Vico,  of  the  Prefetti  family,  the  heredi- 


'*  V    *  '  ' 


^^A--*  -H^ 


7'&J 


THE  BISHOP   OF  BETHLEHEM  3 

tary  prefects  of  Rome,  whose  tombs  may  still  be  seen  at 
Viterbo.  Furthermore,  on  3rd  February,  1245,  the  pope, 
who  was  in  exile  at  Lyons,  gave  Godfrey,  bishop-elect  of 
Bethlehem,  a  special  encyclical  (or  circular-letter),  which 
was  destined  to  found  an  institution,  known  to  half  the 
world  as  "  Bedlam."  The  encyclical  was  addressed  to 
"  archbishops  and  bishops,  abbots,  and  priors,  and  to  all 
the  faithful  children  of  God,"  and  it  was  to  circulate  in 
Italy,  England,  and  Scotland.  It  bespeaks  for  the  brothers 
of  Bethlehem  a  cordial  welcome  and  facilities  for  com- 
mending their  creed  to  the  charitable  :  they  represent  a 
monastery  which  "offers  shelter  to  the  poor,  the  stranger, 
and  the  pilgrim,  and  affords  succ  3ur  to  all  Christians  in  any 
other  affliction."  And  it  is  all  the  more  necessary  to  appeal 
for  alms,  when  the  Church  has  "  suffered  so  much  loss  of 
property  in  the  general  disaster  which  has  overtaken  the  land 
of  the  East,  at  the  hands  of  the  enemies  of  the  Christian 
religion."  Not  a  harsh  word  against  John  the  Roman  !  A 
spiritual  reward  is  to  be  the  guerdon  for  alms  bestowed  upon 
a  place  of  such  holy  and  tender  associations.  But  the  feet 
of  those  who  preach  from  place  to  place  carry  immediate 
blessing  where  they  tread. 

"If  perad  venture  the  brethren  shall  come  unto  a  castle,  or 
village,  which  has  been  lying  under  an  interdict,  the  churches 
shall  be  opened,  and  Divine  services  celebrated  there  on 
that  one  day  in  the  year  at  the  glad  sound  of  their  coming." 

There  were  already  many  daughter-houses  of  Bethlehem 
in  Italy,  and  perhaps  Godfrey  and  his  canons  regular  visited 
each  in  turn.  But  on  20th  April,  1245,  he  is  at  Clamecy, 
not  far  from  Nevers,  France.  Here  in  1168,  William  IV,  a 
count  of  Nevers,  had  assigned  to  the  church  of  Bethlehem 
a  hospice  for  sick  and  wounded  crusaders.  On  25th  June, 
1246,  Godfrey  de  Prefetti  left  for  England,  where  by  a 
dispensation  of  the  pope  he  still  held  the  living  of  Long 
Itchington,  near  Rugby,  and  perhaps  the  benefice  of  Coleby, 
Lincoln. 

In  the  year  of  our  foundation  (1247)  there  was  great 
exasperation  in  England  on  account  of  the  exactions  of  the 


4     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

pope  :  "  the  clergy  "  (writes  Matthew  Paris  with  much  irri- 
tation) "  made  their  contributions  unwilHngly,  or,  to  speak 
quite  frankly,  with  maledictions."  In  the  Papal  Registers  of 
Innocent  IV  there  is  embedded  an  amusing  illustration  of 
the  national  resentment,  in  an  account  of  the  reception  of  the 
proctor  of  the  bishop-elect  of  Bethlehem,  when  he  called  to 
collect  the  greater  part  of  the  emoluments  of  Long  Itching- 
ton.  They  record  that  one  Philip,  the  man  in  possession, 
was  so  aggrieved  that  he  gave  the  bishop's  proctor  a  good 
beating,  broke  two  of  his  ribs,  cut  off  his  horse's  tail,  tying 
his  servant  and  the  horse  to  a  stall :  he  also  imprisoned  the 
dean  of  Wells  and  the  bishop's  proctors  until  they  promised 
to  take  no  further  steps  !  Even  so,  in  the  days  of  Charles 
Lever,  might  a  tenant  in  Ireland  have  greeted  the  return  of 
an  absentee  landlord. 

Godfrey  played  a  part — to  complete  his  dossier — in 
English  history  as  a  matrimonial  agent,  for  in  1256  he 
arranged  a  marriage  between  the  son  of  Edward  I  and 
the  queen-dowager  of  Cyprus,  as  also  between  the  king 
of  Cyprus  and  a  daughter  of  Edward  I. 

This  seems  the  last  reference  to  him,  as  he  was  certainly 
succeeded  about  this  time  by  another  in  his  bishopric. 
Clermont-Ganneau  discovered  the  fragment  of  a  tombstone 
at  Jaffa,  where,  as  a  matter  of  history,  the  bishop  was 
sojourning  in  1253.  It  represents  a  crusading  bishop  who 
died  there  in  1258.  An  angel — a  beautiful  piece  of  incised 
work — is  censing  a  figure  in  episcopal  robes.  Possibly  it  is 
our  Godfrey. 

"  It  is  our  will  and  pleasure,"  writes  the  pope,  in  the 
encyclical  already  quoted,  "  that  you  permit  the  brothers 
to  address  the  people  in  your  churches,  and  to  ask  alms 
of  them  without  let  or  hindrance.  Furthermore,  we,  relying 
upon  the  authority  of  Almighty  God  and  of  the  blessed 
apostles,  St.  Peter  and  St.  Paul,  do  relax  forty  days  of  any 
penance  enjoined  in  the  case  of  anyone  who  shall  succour 
the  brothers  out  of  the  wealth  which  God  has  given  him,  and 
shall  enrol  himself  in  so  holy  a  confraternity,  contributing 
annually  to  its  funds." 


THE  BISHOP   OF  BETHLEHEM  5 

This  circular  letter  of  Innocent  IV  would  have  been  read 
in  many  of  the  churches  of  London,  and  among  those  who 
listened  with  reverence  to  the  words  of  the  pope — either 
at  St.  Botolph's,  Bishopsgate,  or  at  St.  John's,  Walbrook — 
would  have  been  an  alderman,  Simon  FitzMary.  Twice 
sheriff  of  the  city  of  London,  FitzMary  was  a  man  of  wealth, 
and  of  great  influence  in  the  streets  of  the  city  and  in  the 
palace  of  the  king.  In  the  cartulary  of  the  Holy  Trinity, 
Aldgate,  he  appears  as  an  alderman  in  1249  and  1250,  and 
seems  to  have  been  associated  with  the  parish  of  St.  John, 
Walbrook,  but  at  any  rate  he  had  an  estate  in  Bishopsgate. 

You  may  have  noticed  that  he  derives  his  name  from  his 
mother,  as  does  Martin  FitzAlice,  who  was  the  alderman  of 
St.  Michael's,  Paternoster  Royal,  in  1281.  Now  it  must  be 
admitted  that,  when  a  man  derives  his  name  from  his  mother, 
it  is  generally  because  he  is  of  illegitimate  birth.  It  is 
thought,  therefore,  that  such  names  as  Marryat,  Mayson, 
Moggs,  and  Moxon  indicate  the  tainted  origin  of  many  of 
our  commonest  names.  On  the  other  hand,  Baring-Gould 
has  pointed  out  in  his  "Family  Names  and  their  History" 
that  the  general  rule  admits  of  exceptions.  For  instance, 
Sweyn,  the  king  of  Denmark,  was  called  Estrithson  after 
his  mother,  because  through  her  he  obtained  his  right  to  the 
throne. 

Simon  FitzMary  may,  indeed,  have  had  an  honourable 
ancestry,  but  at  least  one  historian  of  London  (Loftie)  takes 
it  for  granted  on  the  ground  of  his  name  that  the  founder  of 
Bethlehem  Hospital  was  of  obscure  birth,  and  finds  in  his 
illegitimacy  a  motive  for  his  espousing  the  cause  of  the 
craftsmen  against  the  mercantile  oligarchy.  Be  this  as  it 
may,  the  memory  of  his  mother  seems  to  have  been  very 
precious  to  him,  and  precious  also  the  church  in  that  far-off, 
war-beaten  land,  where  He  was  worshipped  who  was  also 
known  as  the  Son  of  Mary.  He  seems  to  be  lingering 
lovingly  on  the  tender  associations  which  the  name  of  Mary 
had  for  him,  when  he  writes  in  the  deed-poll  of  his  founda- 
tion that  he  had  an  "especial  and  peculiar  devotion  to  the 
church  of  the  glorious  Virgin  Mary  of  Bethlehem." 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   BASILICA  AND   BROTHERS  OF 
BETHLEHEM 

"  We  are  come  to  worship."  There  are  things  that  jar  or 
disgust — the  Mohammedan  on  guard  with  his  gun,  the  jealous 
votaries  of  a  common  creed,  the  wall  of  division  built  across 
the  choir.  But  the  spirit  of  the  place  takes  human  form  in 
each  of  us  :  a  Russian  pilgrim  is  weeping,  and  he  is  speaking 
a  lancruao^e  we  understand  without  the  aid  of  words. 

This  is  the  ancient  church,  towards  which  in  this  hospital 
we  still  turn  on  Founder's  Day  (23rd  October)  and  on  the 
birthday  of  our  Lord.  Edward  IV  of  England  gave  it  the 
lead  for  the  roof,  and  on  its  floor  knelt  the  English  knights 
of  the  cross,  ere  they  delivered  the  grand  assault  on 
Jerusalem.  From  its  altars  our  priors  and  canons,  our 
confraternities  and  insane  patients  hoped  to  draw  treasures  of 
grace  and  healing.  There  still  cling  to  the  walls  with  the 
glamour  of  a  romantic  past  patches  of  the  glorious  mosaics, 
wherein,  as  in  an  illustrated  book,  the  pilgrim  from  London 
might  once  read  the  history  of  Christ,  of  his  Church,  and  of 
its  great  councils. 

In  330,  or  thereabouts,  Constantine,  inspired  by  the  faith 
of  his  mother,  Helena,  built  this  stately  temple,  substantially 
as  it  appears  to-day.  It  was,  however,  in  later  centuries 
restored  by  Justinian  and  decorated  by  the  Byzantine 
emperor  Manuel,  who  sent  painters  and  mosaists  to  work  for 
Latin  king  and  Latin  church. 

In  this  church  of  the  Nativity,  on  the  Christmas  Day 
of    iioi,    Baldwin    was    crowned    the    first    Latin    king    of 


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BASILICA  AND  BROTHERS  OF  BETHLEHEM     7 

Jerusalem,  and  the  priory  of  Bethlehem  was,  with  the  con- 
sent of  Pope  Paschal  II,  converted  into  the  cathedral  of  a 
new  see.  In  11 87  the  menacing  shadow  of  Salah-ed-din 
(Saladin)  began  to  creep  over  the  walls  of  the  church,  and 
the  sunshine  to  fade  from  its  convent.  At  the  decisive  battle 
of  Tiberias  the  crusaders  were  vanquished,  the  Latin  bishops, 
canons,  and  priests  being  chased  away — as  a  result  of  the 
disaster — from  the  birthplace  of  Christianity.  Later  on, 
however,  Walter,  bishop  of  Salisbury,  obtained  permission 
from  Salah-ed-din  for  two  Latin  and  two  indigenous  priests 
to  remain  and  perform  Divine  service  in  the  basilica.  In 
1 2 17 — two  years  before  Damietta  fell — not  a  single  priest 
dared  to  remain  in  Bethlehem,  and  in  1224  Regnier,  its 
bishop,  decided  to  seek  a  sanctuary  for  himself  and  his 
chapter  in  a  hospital  belonging  to  the  see  at  Clamecy  in 
France.  There  is  evidence  that  some  of  the  brothers  found 
their  way  back  to  their  cathedral  and  convent  in  1229,  and 
re-established  worship.  Ten  years  later  John  the  Roman, 
as  I  have  related,  was  engaged,  with  the  connivance  of 
some  of  the  canons,  in  stealing  or  pledging  the  property  of 
the  see.  In  1244  the  cloud  of  Kharasmian  locusts  swept 
through  Judaea,  leaving  a  barren  wilderness  behind  them. 
Once  more  the  chapter  fled  for  their  lives  to  Europe,  and  it  is 
doubtful  whether  they  ever  returned.  At  any  rate  towards 
the  close  of  the  thirteenth  century  (say  1292)  the  Franciscans 
found  Bethlehem  abandoned,  and  straightway  proceeded  to 
occupy  the  convent  and  basilica. 

If  the  abandonment  of  the  church  by  its  official  protectors 
was  really  absolute,  how  comes  it  to  pass  (it  may  be  asked) 
that  the  basilica — no  doubt  in  a  state  of  dilapidation — had 
even  one  stone  left  upon  another?  I  can  only  answer  that 
for  some  reason,  or  reasons,  the  church  of  Constantine  and 
Justinian  suffered  less  than  other  churches  in  the  Holy  Land 
from  the  violence  of  the  Saracens  and  Tartars.  Khaliph 
Omar  was  certainly  gracious  to  it  in  6'^'/.  Tartar  hordes 
spared  its  venerable  walls  in   1065  and   1244. 

We  hear  of  miracles,  of  serpents  and  fire,  but  also  of  money 
often  paid  by  way  of  ransom.     The  soldiers  of  the   Koran 


8     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

may,  indeed,  have  shown  mercy  and  compassion  to  church 
and  congregation  by  reason  of  their  reverence  for  Mary,  the 
mother  of  our  Lord.  But  it  was  not  profitable  to  kill  the 
goose  with  the  golden  eggs,  and  I  am  inclined  to  suggest  that 
self-interest  lay  at  the  bottom  of  the  well  of  Mohammedan 
tolerance.  No  church — no  pilgrims  :  no  pilgrims — no  back- 
sheesh. Both  in  637  and  in  1065  the  Christians  were  sub- 
jected to  fees,  fines,  and  other  exactions  at  the  hands  of 
their  persecutors.  On  the  second  occasion  the  church  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre  was  only  spared  in  order  that  a  ransom 
might  be  extorted  from  its  guardians. 

The  Franciscans  are  still  in  Bethlehem,  guardians  of  the 
holy  place.  Worthy  successors  of  the  bishop  and  canons, 
they  still  welcome  the  pilgrim  and  the  stranger  with 
hospitality,  and  they  educate  at  their  school  young  men  who 
travel  all  over  the  Christian  world  with  crosses,  rosaries,  and 
other  objects  of  devotion  made  in  the  town. 

In  191 1,  as  soon  as  I  had — thanks  to  the  "Catholic 
Encyclopedia  " — got  on  the  track  of  the  researches  of  Riant, 
I  put  myself  into  communication  with  the  Anglican  bishop  of 
Jerusalem,  and  his  daughter  was  good  enough  to  get  me  an 
introduction  to  Father  James  Egan  and  Father  Barnabe 
Meistermann,  one  of  the  great  authorities  on  the  topography 
and  archaeology  of  the  Holy  Land.  Some  four  months  later 
in  the  same  year  I  had  all  the  pleasure  of  an  antiquary  in 
taking  Father  Egan,  an  envoy  from  the  mother-house,  on 
Thursday,  13th  July,  191 1,  over  the  house  of  the  daughter, 
a  daughter  who  has  made  a  name  for  herself  in  the  world. 
I  do  not  suppose  that  such  an  exchange  of  greetings  has 
taken  place   since   the  thirteenth  century. 

A  lunch  in  an  Italian  cafe  in  Soho — quite  an  idyl  of  dainty 
meats,  of  wine  and  fruits  and  flowers — helped  Father  Egan 
and  the  chaplain  of  Bethlehem  Hospital,  as  they  chatted 
over  Turks,  tourists,  and  the  Greek  Orthodox  Church,  to 
imagine  that  they  were  celebrating  Founder's  Day  in  the  old 
refectory  of  mediaeval  Bishopsgate.  I  hope  that  a  copy  of 
this  book  may  find  its  way  into  the  library  of  the  devoted 
children  of  the  gentle  St.  Francis.     I  should  like  the  friars  of 


BASILICA  AND  BROTHERS  OF  BETHLEHEM     g 

orders  minor  to  have  a  record  of  such  a  historic  meeting. 
Perhaps  also  it  may  interest  the  tourists  who  flock  to 
Bethlehem  to  learn  something  henceforth  from  the  fathers  of 
the  association  of  the  London  hospital  with  the  basilica  and 
convent  of  the  Nativity. 

I  should  love  to  gossip  for  a  page  or  two  over  the  red- 
brown  limestone  pillars  of  the  church,  about  the  crests  of  the 
crusaders  on  the  walls,  or  about  the  door  of  entrance,  dwarfed 
to  prevent  Moslem  horsemen  from  profaning  the  sanctuary. 
But  all  that  I  should  like  to  say  may  be  found  in  Father 
Meistermann's  "  New  Guide  to  the  Holy  Land,"  or  in  the 
sumptuous  and  exhaustive  monograph — amply  illustrated — 
of  the  "  Church  of  the  Nativity,"  which  the  "  Byzantine 
Research  Fund,"  under  the  editorship  of  Mr.  R.  W.  Schultz, 
issued  in  1910. 

I  am,  however,  under  a  vow  to  myself  to  set  forth  on  a  far 
more  hazardous  adventure.  It  is  nothing  less  than  to 
discover  the  history  of  an  obscure  and  forgotten  order,  which 
administered  and  maintained  Bethlehem  Hospital  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  For  centuries  it  had  passed  out  of  the 
memories  and  books  of  scholars,  and  what  there  was  to  learn 
about  it  in  books  of  reference  was  meagre  and  contradictory. 
However — fortunately  for  the  historian  of  this  hospital — two 
French  archaeologists  (Louis  Lagenissiere,  a  barrister,  and 
Count  Paul  Riant)  took  a  fancy  to  dig  into  the  libraries  of 
Rome,  Paris,  Clamecy,  and  London,  in  hopes  of  disinterring 
some  evidence  as  to  the  history  of  the  order.  In  consequence 
of  their  underground  labours  at  the  close  of  the  nineteenth 
century  rich  lodes  of  ore  have  been  brought  to  the  surface. 
Without  these  materials,  which  have  naturally  required  much 
patient  sorting,  I  could  not  have  constructed  the  foundations 
of  my  work. 

I  shall  try  to  marshal  my  facts  as  lucidly  as  possible,  and  I 
will  begin  by  noting  that  the  brothers  were  dispersed  over 
Europe  in  the  twelfth  century.  There  were  canons  at 
Bethlehem  in  Palestine,  but  there  were  also  brothers  who  had 
served  the  hospice  and  its  pilgrims  ;  and  these  brothers 
found  their  way  to  various  parts  of  Italy,  France,  England 


10     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

and  Scotland,  where  the  see  of  Bethlehem  possessed  property 
and  exercised  a  jurisdiction  which  was  independent  of 
everybody  but  the  pope. 

In  these  stations  of  their  order  they  managed  the  estates 
of  the  mother-house  and  administered  their  affairs,  just 
as  the  preceptors  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem  were  accustomed 
to  do.  Another  function  of  the  brothers  no  doubt  was 
to  make  all  arrangements  for  the  pilgrims,  to  select  a 
ship  at  Venice  or  Genoa,  to  see  them  safely  on  board, 
and  to  provide  guides  and  an  escort  for  them  on  their 
arrival  at  Jaffa. 

There  was  a  chain  of  little  colonies  of  Bethlehemites 
throughout  parts  of  Europe.  There  were  Bethlehemite 
hospitallers  at  Padua  in  1186;  there  was  a  hospital  of 
St.  Mary  of  Bethlehem  at  Pavia  in  1 2 10.  Seven  years 
later  an  order  of  Bethlehemites,  of  whom  I  shall  have 
more  to  say  later,  was  introduced  into  Bohemia,  and  put 
in  charge  of  two  hospitals.  In  1227,  according  to  a  bull 
of  Pope  Gregory  IX,  there  were  in  Italy  some  eight  hospitals 
and  some  seventy  churches  served  by  Bethlehemites. 

Twenty  years  later  our  founder,  Simon  FitzMary,  handed 
over  land  in  Bishopsgate  to  the  bishop  of  Bethlehem  for 
the  establishment  of  a  priory  with  a  prior,  canons,  brothers, 
and  sisters.  In  the  following  year  (perhaps)  the  same 
bishop  founded  a  similar  hospital  (St.  Germains)  in  the 
parish  of  Tranent,  in  East  Lothian.  In  1257,  as  Matthew 
Paris  tells  us  in  his  chronicles,  Bethlehemite  brothers  settled 
at  Trumpington,  near  Cambridge.  The  chronicler,  who 
illustrated  his  text  himself,  describes  them  as  wearing  on 
their  breast  a  red  star,  five-rayed,  of  which  he  gives  a 
picture,  with  a  dark  blue  centre.  Nine  or  ten  years  later 
a  bull  of  Clement  IV  mentions  "  an  oratory  of  New 
Bethlehem  in  London." 

The  intricate  problem,  which  now  confronts  us,  is  to 
decide,  or  even  to  conjecture,  whether  these  brothers  were 
monks  dedicated  to  spiritual  exercises,  whether  they  were 
mendicant  friars,  whether  they  were  an  order  of  chivalry, 
or  whether   one  order  has  been  confused  with  another. 


BASILICA  AND  BROTHERS  OF  BETHLEHEM    ii 

It  will,  I  fancy,  help  us  to  get  as  near  a  solution 
of  a  problem,  which  has  puzzled  even  Riant,  as  anybody 
may  at  present  hope  to  get,  if  I  quote  what  the  brothers 
themselves  said  of  the  origin  and  character  of  their  order 
in  a  document  which  I  was  destined  to  discover  in  the 
city  Letter-books  in  the  course  of  my  multifarious 
researches. 

In  a  petition  which  the  London  brothers  presented  to 
the  mayor  and  aldermen  of  London  in  1346,  occur  some 
words  which  are,  as  it  were,  sighs  over  the  past,  and 
prayers   for  the   future  ; — 

"  May  this  order,  which  was  the  first  order  of  the  Church 
catholic,  created  next  after  the  order  of  Christ  and  His 
apostles,  and  descends,  as  originally  created,  directly  from 
that  order,  for  ever  flourish,  by  means  of  this  house,  among 
all  the  orders  of  the  Church  catholic,  and  may  it  fulfil  the 
aims  and  objects  for  which  it  was  at  the  first  introduced 
and  instituted  from  such  ancient  times  by  so  many  holy 
men  and  for  such  holy  ends.  Amen  !  May  it  flourish, 
for  it  was  instituted  by  St.  James  the  Less  as  an  order 
of  contemplation,  as  a  military  order  by  Constantine,  the 
holy  and  renowned,  and  as  an  order  of  hospitallers  by 
St.  Augustine,  to  the  greater  glory  of  God  and  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ." 

We  need  not  take  too  seriously  the  genealogy  of  a 
monastic  or  masonic  order,  but  probably  there  is  a  thick 
seam  of  fact  under  the  flowery  surfaces  of  these  sentences. 
In  any  case  I  shall  allow  myself  to  accept  as  more  or 
less  historical  the  three  divisions  of  the  order  which  the 
master  and  brethren  indicate  in  their  petition.  For  the 
development  of  the  order  of  the  knights-hospitallers 
of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem  offers  a  parallel  which  may  help 
us  antiquaries  out  of  our  perplexities.  The  institution  of 
the  brothers  of  St.  John  of  Jerusalem  was  due  to  the 
efforts  of  some  Italian  merchants  who  had  influence  with 
the  sultan  of  Egypt.  In  the  middle  of  the  eleventh 
century  the  Latin  Christians  not  only  suffered  terrible 
things  at  the  sword  of  the  Tartar,    but    they  had    also    to 


12     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

face  the  hostility  of  the  adherents  of  the  Greek  Church. 
As  a  result  of  their  endeavours  a  Latin  church  and  convent, 
served  by  Benedictines,  was  erected  in  Jerusalem.  To  the 
convent  two  great  hospices  were  attached — each  with  its 
own  chapel — one  for  men  and  the  other  for  women.  As 
late  as  the  year  1118  the  brothers  of  St.  John  were  simply 
hospitallers,  and  had  no  military  section  :  for  they  had 
forsworn  the  use  of  arms.  But  in  that  year  the  new  master 
(Dupuy)  pointed  out  to  the  confraternity  the  absolute 
necessity  of  altering  the  constitution  of  the  order  immediately. 
The  Tartars  were  massacring  Christians  daily,  and  selling 
into  slavery  their  wives  and  daughters.  The  patriarch 
of  Jerusalem  absolved  the  members  of  the  order  from 
their  vows  and  a  threefold  division  of  the  brethren  was 
sanctioned.  There  were  henceforth  to  be,  as  a  first  division, 
knights  of  noble  birth  for  service  in  the  field  against  the 
enemies  of  Christ.  Secondly,  the  clergy  were  to  act  as 
chaplains,  to  visit  the  poor  and  sick  in  the  hospices,  to 
follow  the  knights  to  the  field,  or  to  undertake  to  minister 
to  the  wounded.  The  serving  brethren  formed  a  third 
class  ;  they  acted  as  squires  to  the  knights,  or  assisted  in  the 
hospices. 

It  should  be  easier — with  this  explanation — to  reconstruct 
the  history  and  developments  of  an  order  which  would  seem 
to  have  included  knights  as  well  as  hospitallers. 

The  petition,  to  which  we  must  return,  speaks  of  an  order 
of  contemplation  instituted  by  James  the  Less.  It  is,  of 
course,  quite  reasonable  to  suppose  that  knots  of  hermits  and 
pilgrims  were  grouped  round  the  cave  of  the  Nativity  from 
apostolic  times.  We  may  perceive  their  successors  in  the 
canons  who  were  responsible  for  the  performance  of  Divine 
service  in  the  cathedral.  They  visited  the  sick  in  the  hospices 
and  ministered  to  the  wounded  on  the  battlefield.  The  "  New 
Bethlehem "  in  London  was  in  like  manner  to  contain 
canons  according  to  the  rule  and  order  of  the  church  of 
Bethlehem,  and  they  were  to  celebrate  masses  in  the  church 
to  be  built  for  the  souls  of  the  founder  and  of  his  friends  and 
of  all  Christian  dead. 


BASILICA  AND  BROTHERS  OF  BETHLEHEM   13 

But  the  London  priory  was  also  (it  is  important  to  notice) 
to  contain  "  brothers  and  sisters  "  as  well  as  a  prior  and 
canons.  There  is  little  evidence  of  the  existence  of  sisters  at 
Bishopsgate,  but  the  brothers  are  clearly  the  "  hospitallers  " 
of  the  petition  quoted,  "who  follow  the  rule  of  St. 
Augustine/' 

In  the  words  of  Innocent  IV,  which  I  have  printed  in  the 
first  chapter,  the  convent  and  its  brothers  were  wont  to  offer 
"  shelter  to  the  poor,  the  stranger,  the  pilgrim,  and  to 
Christians  in  any  other  afflictions." 

As  early  as  the  time  of  Jerome  (384-420),  who  resided  at 
Bethlehem,  St.  Paula  built  a  great  hostelry  for  pilgrims  close 
to  the  basilica  of  Bethlehem,  and  throughout  the  Middle 
Ages  the  order  is  associated,  as  was  that  of  St.  John  of 
Jerusalem,  with  the  work  of  a  hospital,  ix.^  primarily  a 
hospice,  in  Italy,  France  and  London.  Our  hospital  is — to 
be  exact — first  described  as  a  hospital,  or  hospice,  in  a  licence 
of  Edward  III  in  1329,  but  other  documents  in  the  Record 
Office  assert  that  our  house  was  originally  "  founded  for  the 
entertainment  of  the  sick  and  poor." 

But  the  brothers  had  not  only  to  minister  in  the  hospice 
and  its  infirmary,  but  also  to  beg  for  money  for  the  main- 
tenance of  both.  As  early  as  1223  a  brother  was  in  England 
collecting  for  the  mother-house.  In  1248  the  offertory-box, 
which  had  been  rattled  up  and  down  the  streets  of  the  city, 
threatened  to  stay  in  England,  and  the  pope  thundered.  In 
1302  the  brothers  of  Bethlehem  were  "roaming  about 
England,  collecting  alms,  granting  absolution,  where  they 
ought  not,  and  deceiving  people  with  falsehoods."  The 
bishop  of  Bethlehem,  therefore — his  name  was  Wulfran — felt 
it  his  duty  to  write  to  the  archbishop  of  York  to  say  that  he 
had  "  cancelled  all  privilege^  formerly  granted  to  them."  So 
far  as  the  English  priory  was  concerned,  the  poor  and  the 
sick  (whether  in  mind  or  body)  were  absolutely  dependent 
for  food  on  the  baskets  carried  by  mendicant  brothers  to 
receive  broken  meat  from  the  tables  of  the  London  citizens. 
What  revenues  we  had  in  pre-Reformation  times  went  to  the 
master,  who  was  after    1375    some    friend   of  the    king,  an 


14     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

absentee  and  a  pluralist,  and  any  money  for  the  repair  of 
buildings  or  for  the  purposes  of  charity  had  to  be  obtained  by 
begging.  Our  hospital  had  its  brothers,  collectors,  proctors, 
and  friars  in  London,  the  provinces,  and  at  Calais.  Licences  to 
beg,  with  protection  from  arrest,  were  granted  to  the  London 
house  throughout  the  fourteenth  century. 

We  have  now  reached  the  most  difficult  ground — marshes 
and  pitfalls  succeeding  each  other — in  the  course  of  our 
journey.  Let  some  light  from  the  order  of  St.  John  fall  upon 
our  path. 

According  to  the  terms  of  the  petition  under  review  "it 
was  instituted  as  a  military  order  by  Constantine."  It  is 
conceivable,  of  course^  that  under  the  constitution  of 
Constantine,  certain  priests,  or  lay  brothers,  of  the  Greek 
Church  were  charged  with  the  duty  of  guiding  and  of  pro- 
tecting pilgrims — by  force  if  necessary — on  the  road  to  the 
goal  of  their  pious  wanderings.  But  with  the  creation  of  the 
military  section  of  the  order  of  St.  John  in  our  mind  we  may 
certainly  venture  to  imagine  that  the  brothers  of  Bethlehem 
were  driven  by  the  massacre  and  outrages  of  their  persecutors 
to  put  arms  into  the  hands  of  some  of  the  brethren,  or  to 
enrol  some  of  the  crusaders  in  their  confraternity. 

If  anything  like  this  did  happen,  not  only  was  the  phrase 
in  the  petition  justified,  but  also  a  claim  which  was  made  by 
one  "William  Welles  Esquire"  in  1381,  when  he  was  a 
candidate  for  the  mastership  on  the  part  of  the  king.  The 
hospital  ought,  he  urged,  to  be  governed  by  knights,  and  no 
otherwise  ("doit  estre  gov'ne  par  chivalrie").  In  proof  of 
his  contention  he  appealed  to  the  archives  of  the  convent : — 
"  let  them  exhibit  the  bulls  which  they  have  received  from 
the  time  of  Godfrey  de  Bouillon,  for  they  testify  the  manner 
of  the  foundation  of  the  house." 

There  is  good  reason  to  believe  that  such  bulls,  which 
would  support  my  argument,  were  once  to  be  found  in  our 
muniment  room.  For  instance  between  1346  and  1356  the 
documents  which  passed  between  Bishopsgate  and  the  Guild- 
hall invariably  speak  of  "  the  master  and  brethren  of  the  house 
and  order  of  the  knights  of  St.  Mary  of  Bethlehem."     Again 


BASILICA  AND  BROTHERS  OF  BETHLEHEM   15 

in  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII  under  the  year  1 5 19  John  Cavalari, 
the  master  or  warden,  associates  the  house  with  the  "  military 
order  of  the  stars  " — mihtia  stellarum.  It  is  possible,  it  so 
happens,  to  prove  that  such  an  order  did  exist  in  Bohemia, 
France  and  Scotland,  and  that  the  red  cross  of  the  crusader 
was  coupled  with  the  star  worn  by  our  own  brothers  on  their 
mantles  from  the  beginning.  For  example,  the  Bethlehemites 
who  were  introduced  into  Bohemia  in  12 17  wore  a  red  cross 
over  a  red  star.  In  1410  and  a  quarter  of  a  century  later  the 
brothers  of  the  Scottish  hospital  of  St.  Germains  appear  in 
papal  and  other  documents  quoted  by  Mr.  Egerton  Beck  as 
"  wearers  of  the  red  cross."  Finally  the  bishop  of  Bethlehem 
at  Clamecy,  France,  describes  himself  in  1379  as  the  "general 
of  the  order  of  Bethlehemites  dispersed  throughout  the  world." 
I  add  a  postscript  to  my  "  finally  "  with  some  hesitation,  as 
my  suggestion  is  in  conflict  with  the  professional  explanation 
of  my  friend,  Mr.  Everard  Green,  Somerset  Herald.  How- 
ever, may  I  be  so  bold  as  to  urge  that  it  may  not  be  without 
an  allusion  to  the  history  of  the  order  that  the  arms  of  the 
hospital  include  a  red  cross,  imprinted  on  the  Host  within  the 
blazing  star  of  Bethlehem  ? 


CHAPTER   III 

THE    FOUNDATION 

It  was  23rd  October,  1247,  the  Wednesday  after  the  Feast 
of  St.  Luke  the  physician  so  beloved  by  his  patient,  St. 
Paul,  in  hours  of  mental  depression,  and  the  "  hermit  in 
Bishopsgate  "  had  just  promised  his  prayers  to  a  wife  who 
yearned  for  a  child,  while  he  affected  not  to  see  her  humble 
offering.  Just  without  the  gate  craftsmen  in  leather  jerkins 
were  listening  with  eager  faces  to  a  hungry  chantry-priest, 
who  was  urging  them  to  rally  round  Simon  FitzMary,  a  man 
of  the  people  for  the  people.  From  the  "  dogges-house " 
across  the  marshes  of  Moorfields  was  wafted  the  yelping 
of  the  hounds,  who  were  to  draw  a  fox  in  Marylebone 
that  afternoon. 

Some  ten  days  earlier,  on  the  Feast  of  the  Translation 
of  Edward  the  Confessor,  Henry  III  had  passed  in  pro- 
cession from  St.  Paul's  to  Westminster  Abbey :  he  had 
carried  under  a  canopy  a  phial  of  the  blood  of  Christ  sent 
by  the  Templars.  He  had  been  accompanied  by  the  bishop- 
elect  of  Bethlehem,  Godfrey  de  Vico,  private  chaplain  to  his 
holiness.  Innocent  IV.  To-day  Godfrey  was  himself  the 
central  figure  in  the  procession  of  ecclesiastics  which  issued 
from  St.  Botolph's,  Bishopsgate.  Incense  arose  and  holy 
water  fell  as  they  traced  out  the  boundaries  of  the  land 
donated  by  Simon  FitzMary.  An  altar  had  been  erected 
where  an  oratory  was  to  do  duty  in  the  days  of  poverty 
for  the  priory  church.  A  holy  relic  was  enshrined  in  it : 
it  was  anointed  with  holy  oils,  and  censed  with  a  cross  of 
smoke :   prayer  and  antiphon,  and   holy  water  consecrated 

it  to  the  service  of  the  Son  of  Mary. 

16 


/ 


THE  FOUNDATION 


17 


Among  those  who  bowed  their  heads,  when  the  bell  pro- 
claimed the  stupendous  moment  of  transubstantiation,  were 
crusaders  who  had  drunk  of  the  well  of  Bethlehem,  or  had 
seen  its  star  in  the  east :  they  had  been  parched  with  the 
thirst  of  battle,  or  had  laid  down,  where  they  fought,  under 
the  walls  of  Bethlehem.  To-day  the  land,  which  Simon 
offered  on  his  knees  at  the  altar  to  the  "  church  of  the 
glorious  Virgin  Mary  of  Bethlehem,"  is  approximately  occu- 
pied by  Liverpool  Street  and  its  three  stations.  On  the  solemn 
day  of  dedication  it  was  a  land  of  "  orchards  and  gardens,  of 


THE   FOUNDATION   OF  BETHLEHEM   HOSPITAL. 
A  Vision  of  1247. 


ditches  and  marshes"  ;  and  reeds,  which  in  1298  were  worth 
a  lawsuit — if  anything  really  is — grew  by  the  side  of  a 
sluggish  stream,  which  here  broadened  out  to  meet  the 
waters  of  the  Walbrook.  On  the  east  of  it  was,  as  still, 
the  highway  into  Essex  and  the  north ;  to  the  south  St. 
Botolph's  church,  where  it  still  stands  in  a  Georgian  dress  ; 
to  the  west  was  this  stream  of  Depeditch — Blomfield  Street 
and  a  sewer  imprison  it  to-day  ;  on  the  north  of  it  was  the 
estate  of  Ralph  Dunning — I  remember  a  Dunning's  Alley 
opposite  Union  Street,  now  swallowed  up  by  the  G.E.R. 
station.      Underneath    the    site    of  the    priory — for   it  was 

3 


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THE  FOUNDATION  19 

outside  the  walls — lay  a  Roman  cemetery  :  the  excavations 
for  the  railway  station  dragged  away  the  tender  shroud  of 
soil  from  cinerary  urn,  and  cist,  and  statuette.  This  ceme- 
tery lay  outside  and  to  the  west  of  a  Roman  gate  and  fort. 
In  685  Bishop  Erkenwald  built  a  gate,  where  the  site  of 
the  bishop's  gate  is  still  indicated,  and  each  cartload  of 
wood  passing  through  to  the  city  had  to  pay  a  log  as  toll 
to  his  successors. 

The  deed-poll  of  the  founder  has  come  down  to  us — we 
gratefully  condone  the  rascality  which  made  it  necessary 
to  indite  a  copy  of  the  original.  This  was  made  in  1403, 
when  Henry  IV  ordered  an  inquisition  into  the  scandals 
which  had  grown  up — many,  rank,  and  poisonous — in  Beth- 
lehem Hospital. 

The  deed-poll  of  FitzMary  is  a  little  primer  of  our  history 
in  itself,  and  I  print  it  in  full.  The  translation  from  the 
original  Latin  is  mine  : — 

^0  all  the  children  of  our  holy  mother,  the  Church,  to 
whom  this  writing  present  shall  come,  SiMON  FitzMary,  a 
citizen  of  London,  wisheth  salvation  in  the  Lord. 

JFOta^ntUCf)  as  those  sublime  designs  of  Heaven,  which 
have  wrought  such  wonders  in  the  world,  ought  to  be 
venerated  amongst  other  objects  of  our  worship,  nay,  above 
all  others,  with  all  the  greater  devotion  in  those  lands, 
wherein  the  weakness  of  our  mortal  nature  after  the  fall 
of  our  first  parent  took  the  first  steps  towards  its  restora- 
tion, 

^Cril^  it  seems  becoming  that  the  place,  in  which  the 
Word  Made  Flesh  issued  from  the  womb  of  a  Virgin,  and 
where  was  born  the  author  and  beginning  of  the  redemption 
of  mankind,  should  be  held  in  peculiar  veneration  and  should 
be  dowered  with  effectual  benefactions. 

tIEl)i0  is  the  cause  why  I,  the  said  SiMON,  THE  SON  OF 
Mary,  who  bear  an  especial  and  peculiar  devotion  towards 
the  church  of  the  glorious  Virgin  Mary  of  Bethleem, 

(lJQlj)0rt  the  same  Virgin  brought  forth  her  first  born  son, 
QUr  Incarnate  S4VIOUR,  JESIJS  Christ,  and  fed  hini  ^s  he 


20     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

lay  in  the  manger  with  her  own  milk,  where  also  the  mul- 
titude of  the  heavenly  host  sung  that  new  hymn  ''  Glory  to 
God  in  the  Highest,"  and  where,  too,  the  author  of  our 
salvation  and  the  King  of  kings  was  pleased  to  be  wor- 
shipped by  kings  [the  "wise  men"],  before  whom  went  a 
new  star — 

T£>^  ttajSfOn.  of  my  reverence  for  my  Lord  Himself  and 
for  the  same  His  most  pitiful  mother,  to  the  honour  and 
glory  also  of  my  LoRD  HENRY  the  illustrious  King  OF 
England  (may  the  aforesaid  Mother  of  God  and  her  only 
begotten  Son  take  his  wife  and  children  under  their  care  and 
protection !),  to  the  benefit  in  manifold  ways  of  the  city  of 
London,  in  which  I  was  born,  as  well  as  for  the  salvation 
of  my  own  soul,  and  of  the  souls  of  my  ancestors  and 
descendants,  for  the  salvation  of  the  souls  of  my  parents 
and  of  my  friends,  and  specially  for  the  souls  of  GuY  OF 
Marlow,  John  Durant,  Ralph  Aswy,  of  Matilda, 
Margery,  and  Dionysia  their  wives — 

^abe  gtbert  antl  grantrti  (and  by  this  present  deed 
have  confirmed  the  gift)  to  GOD  and  the  church  of  St.  Mary 
of  Bethleem  all  that  land  of  mine  which  I  had  in  the  parish 
of  St.  Botolph  without  Bisshopesgate,  London, — to  wit,  all 
that  I  had  or  might  have  there,  in  houses,  gardens,  orchards, 
fish-ponds,  ditches,  marshes,  and  all  other  things  appertaining 
thereto,  as  defined  by  their  boundaries.  These  extend  in 
length  from  the  king's  highway  on  the  east  to  that  ditch  on 
the  west  which  is  called  Depeditch,  and  in  breadth  to  the 
land  which  belonged  to  RALPH  Dunning  on  the  north  and 
to  the  land  of  St.  Botolph's  church  on  the  south, 

^D  be  Jeltl  antl  retainetl  as  alms  bestowed  upon  the 
aforesaid  church  of  Bethleem,  free  from  all  secular  control, 
tax,  or  service  for  ever,  and  especially  for  the  foundation  of  a 
priory  there,  and  for  the  institution  there  of  a  prior,  canons, 
and  brothers,  and  of  sisters  as  well,  so  soon  as  ever  the  Lord 
Jesus  Christ  shall  have  poured  His  grace  upon  it  more 
abundantly.  These  shall  solemnly  profess  in  the  said  place 
the  rule  and  order  of  the  said  church  of  Bethleem,  and  shall 
in  the  same  wear  publicly  upon  their  copes  and  mantles  the 


THE  FOUNDATION  21 

badge  of  a  star,  ^ntl  there  shall  be  celebrated  there  Divine 
services  for  the  souls  aforesaid,  and  for  the  souls  of  all  the 
faithful  dead. 

%\Xt  in  particular  this  priory  shall  be  founded  to  receive 
there  the  bishop  of  Bethleem,  the  canons,  brothers,  and 
nuncios  for  all  time,  so  often  as  they  shall  come  thither. 

jFurt^trmore,  to  the  intent  that  a  church  or  oratory  may 
be  erected  there,  so  soon  as  ever  the  Lord  shall  have  poured 
out  His  grace  more  abundantly  upon  it,  under  such  conditions 
that  the  ordination,  the  institution,  and  the  dismissal  of  the 
prior,  canons,  brothers,  and  sisters  of  the  said  place,  together 
with  the  rights  of  visitation,  correction,  and  reformation, 
shall  for  ever  belong  to  the  bishop  of  Bethleem  and  his 
successors  and  to  the  chapter  of  his  church  and  of  his 
nuncios,  so  often  as  they  shall  come  thither,  and  shall  be 
willing,  and  shall  see  that  it  is  expedient  to  do  so,  without 
the  contradiction  and  hindrance  of  anyone,  save  where  there 
are  appertaining  to  the  said  land  the  services  due  to  the 
lords  superior. 

And  for  the  greater  security  of  this  gift  3I  \^t  placetl 
myself  and  mine  outside  the  said  property,  and  I  have 
solemnly  put  in  actual  possession  of  it,  and  have  handed 
over  the  possession  of  all  things  aforesaid  to  the  lord 
Godfrey  of  the  family  of  the  Prefetti  [the  hereditary 
prefects]  of  the  city  of  Rome,  at  this  time  bishop-elect 
of  Bethleem  (as  by  our  lord  the  pope  confirmed)  and  at 
this  time  actually  in  England,  in  his  own  name,  and  in  that 
of  his  successors,  and  in  the  name  of  the  chapter  of  the 
church  of  Bethleem.  ^itU  he  has  received  possession  of 
the  said  property,  and  has  entered  upon  it  in  the  form  pre- 
scribed. 

^Oto  in  token  of  subjection  and  reverence  the  said  place 
in  Bisshopesgate  Without  in  London  shall  pay  annually 
in  the  said  city  one  mark  sterling  on  Easter  Day  to  the 
bishop  of  Bethleem,  or  his  representative  on  behalf  of  its 
property. 

^nti  according  as  the  property  of  the  said  place  shall  by 
the  gift  of  God   the  more  increase,  in  like  manner  the  said 


22     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

place  shall  pay  more,  in  proportion  to  its  income,  on  the 
aforesaid  date,  to  its  mother  church  of  Bethleem. 

^^i^  2Dt^tl  of  (Biii  and  the  confirmation  of  the  present 
deed  I  have  on  behalf  of  myself  and  of  my  heirs  made 
secure  and  binding,  attaching  my  seal  to  it,  in  the  year  of 
our  Lord  1247  on  the  Wednesday  after  the  Feast  of  St. 
Luke  the  Evangelist. 

W^zm  teing:  Wiiim^^t^ :  PETER  FITZ-ALAN,  then 
mayor  of  London  ;  NICHOLAS  BAT,  at  this  time  sheriff, 
who  are  aldermen  of  the  city,  and  of  the  same  ward  ; 
RALPH  SPERLYNGES,  alderman,  GODFREY  DE 
CAMPES,  SIMON  THE  CURRIER,  SIMON  THE 
LORINER,  ROBERT  OF  WODEFORD,  THOMAS 
OF  WODEFORD,  WALTER  POYNTEL,  WALTER 
WODEFORD,  JACOB  FITZ-PETER,  JOHN  JUS- 
CIOR  (?),  ALEXANDER  OF  SCHOREDYCH 
THOMAS  OF  BERKSHIRE,  and  STEPHEN  THE 
FARRIER,  his  brother,  who  was  then  bedel  of  the  ward  ; 
GREGORY  the  son  of  GREGORY,  JOHN  DURANT, 
ROBERT  the  BAKER,  ROGER  OF  EPPING,  and 
many  others. 

Simon  FitzMary  dreamed  not  of  a  hospital  which  should 
minister  to  the  "  afflicted  in  mind,  body,  or  estate,"  though 
he  may  have  anticipated  the  charitable  work  of  hospitallers. 
He  had  been  taught  that  it  would  be  for  the  salvation  of  his 
soul  to  give  land  for  a  priory,  and  he  designed  that  masses, 
which  would  shorten  his  bath  of  cleansing  fires,  should  be  for 
ever  sung  for  his  soul. 

It  is  a  very  natural,  a  very  human,  prayer  that  Osiris  in 
the  weighing  of  the  soul  in  Amenti  would  place  the  good  in 
the  scale  over  against  the  ill.  "  Remember  me,  O  my  God," 
also  pleads  Nehemiah,  the  Jew,  "  concerning  this,  and  wipe 
not  out  my  good  deeds  that  I  have  done  for  the  house  of 
my  God." 

The  last  of  the  masses  for  Simon's  soul  was  sung  many 
centuries  ago  ;  the  obit  is  no  longer  celebrated  :  the  founder's 
tomb  by  the  high  altar  did  not  survive  the  removal  of  the 


THE  FOUNDATION 


23 


altar  to  St.  Thomas's,  Southwark.  But  the  priory  has  turned 
out,  as  he  hoped,  to  be  "  to  the  benefit  in  manifold  ways  of 
the  city  of  London,"  in  which  he  was  born. 


OFFERING  UP  A  DEED   OF   FOUNDATION   ON  THE  ALTAR. 
(Drawn  by  Mr.  Charles  Naish,  after  a  mediceval  illustration.) 


In  the  southernmost  side  aisle  of  the  basilica  of  Bethlehem, 
near  to  the  west  end  of  the  church,  there  stands  an  ancient 
font  hewn  out  of  an  octagonal  block  of  the  same  red-brown 


24     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 


THE   FONT   IN  THE   BASILICA. 


An  iron  lid  with  a  brass  central  panel  covers  the  internal 

basin  of  the   font.     The  brass  panel  is  bossed   into  the 

shape  of  a  crucifix,  occupying  the  centre   of  a  Maltese 

cross. 

limestone  as  the  columns.     The  dedication  of  it  is  in  ancient 
Greek  letters,  and  it  reads  : — 

"  In  memory  of  sinners,  whose  names  are  known  to  God. 
May  He  grant  their  souls  repose  and  forgiveness  of  sins." 


THE  FOUNDATION  25 

In  the  spirit  of  these  words,  I  think,  as  I  enter  the  hospital 
which  is  their  immortal  memorial,  of  Simon  FitzMary,  John 
of  Croydon,  Edward  Tyson,  Edward  Barkham,  John  Parsons, 
and  other  benefactors,  whose  names  are  no  longer  known  to 
the  mouths  of  mortal  men. 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE    FOUNDER 

"  The  life  of  man,"  said  the  thane  to  the  king,  "  is  as  the 

passage  of  a  bird  :  you  are  sitting  with  your  aldermen  by  the 

blazing  fire,  while  without  is  the  wind  and  the  snow  :  then  a 

sparrow  comes  in  and  flies  swiftly  through  the  house,  entering 

at  one  door  and  passing  out  at  the  other.     Even  so  the  life 

of  man  is  visible  for  a  time,  but  as  to  what  follows  or  what 

went  before  we  know  not  at  all."     This  simile  illustrates  the 

passage  of  our  founder,  Simon  FitzMary,  through  the  house 

of  life.     He  appears  for  a  while  in  the  light  and  warmth  of 

history   in   the  hall  of  aldermen.      But  he  enters  from  the 

darkness    at    one   door    and    passes    into    the    darkness    by 

another :    we    are    ignorant    of   the    earliest  and  the  latest 

events  of  his  life. 

We  conjecture,  indeed,  from  the  form  of  his  name  that 

he  was  of  Norman  lineage,  and   yet,  possibly,  with  a  bend 

sinister  across   his   escutcheon  :  we   note  that  he   makes   no 

mention    of  wife    or    kinsfolk    when    directing    that   masses 

should  be  sung   for  his  own  soul  and  for  the  souls  of  his 

three  friends  and  their  wives.     It  is  obvious  that  he  was  a 

man  of  great  wealth  and  influence,  for  he  is  said  to  have 

'  bribed  the  king,"  and  he  was  able  to  give  away  one  estate 

and  to  purchase  another  in  the  course  of  a  year.     But  our 

authorities  are  few,  and  not  very  illuminating.     There  is  the 

deed-poll  of  the  foundation,  which  indicates  his  devotional 

temperament :  there  is  also  in  the  Public  Record   Office  a 

conveyance  to  him  of  some  thirty-five  acres  of  land  in  the 

village  of  Shoreditch,  which  he  purchased  for  ;£'20  :  he  must 

26 


THE  FOUNDER 


27 


have  seen,  and  may  have  handled,  this  document,  for  it  is 
the  counterpart  kept  by  the  court  of  his  title  to  the  property. 

In  the  Guildhall  will  also  be  found  extracts  in  manuscript 
from  the  Pipe  Rolls  relating  to  the  payment  or  non-payment 
of  his  accounts  as  sheriff: — "  Simon  FitzMary  fined  ;^20 
because  he  came  not,"  "Simon  FitzMary  owes  half  a 
mark  for  unjust  detention," — "  Simon  FitzMary  pays  three 
and  a  half  marks  of  several  debts,"  and   similar  entries. 

The  chronicles,  however,  have  also  left  us  some  references 
to  his  public  life,  and  I  shall  venture  to  reconstruct  some  of 
the  scenes  in  it  with  the  help  of  a  little  imagination  and  much 


Two  copies  were  made  of  this  deed  on  the  same  piece  of  parchment. 
In  a  blank  space  between  the  two  copies  the  word  CYROGRAPHUM 
was  written  in  large  letters.  Through  this  word  a  curving  and 
indented  line  was  cut  with  a  pair  of  scissors.  If  genuine,  the  deed 
arid  counterpart  should  dovetail  into  one  another. 


research.  Let  us  then  imagine — it  will  injure  nobody — that 
the  alderman  is  standing  in  the  archway  of  the  courtyard  of 
his  mansion  :  two  gilded  posts  stand  in  front  of  it,  as  symbols 
of  his  official  rank.  He  is  about  to  mount  his  horse,  to  ride 
to  the  royal  palace  at  Westminster,  for  he  is  in  the  confidence 
of  Henry  HI,  and  consents  to  further  his  intrigues  against 
the  city,  for  the  sake  of  the  popular  cause.  The  streets  are 
unpaved,  and  a  filthy  gutter  runs  down  the  middle  of  them. 
From  unglazed  windows  garbage  falls,  and  privileged  pigs  of 
St.  Anthony,  who  have  been  whining  for  food  from  the  passer- 
by, make  a  dash  for  it.  On  the  appearance  of  FitzMary,  the 
champion  of  the  people,  the  craftsmen  throng  around  him. 


28     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

"  You  have  felt,"  he  might  say  to  them  in  the  words  of  an 
earher  leader  of  the  commons,  "  the  hard  hand  of  those  who 
spare  themselves  and  spoil  the  poor.  I  go  to  see  your  lord, 
the  king,  who  will  be  the  saviour  of  poor  men.  Rejoice  in 
him,  for  your  time  of  redemption  draweth  nigh."  With 
tumult  and  shouting  the  procession  riots  along  between  the 
market  stalls  of  Cheapside  to  the  New  Gate ;  but  Fitz 
Thedmar,  the  haughty  chronicler  of  the  aristocratic  party, 
sits  down  at  his  desk  with  a  snarl  to  jot  down  in  his 
annals  : — "  FitzMary  bribed  the  king,  who  sent  letters  com- 
manding the  city  to  elect  him  as  sheriff,  howbeit  he  failed  of 
his  evil  counsel." 

Leaving  FitzMary  to  ride  along  by  the  strand  of  the  river, 
by  bushes  and  rivulets,  past  palace  of  noble  and  inn  of 
bishop,  let  us  try  to  estimate  the  political  situation  in  the 
city  in  the  early  years  of  our  foundation. 

There  were  two  parties  in  the  city  in  the  thirteenth  and 
fourteenth  centuries.  These  were  the  aristocratic  burghers, 
men  of  wealth  and  family,  and  the  traders  and  artisans,  who 
suspected  that  they  were  paying  more  than  their  fair  share  of 
the  taxes.  The  ruling  families  had  all  the  wealth  and  power. 
Theoretically  they  were  supposed  to  rule  with  the  consent  of 
the  populace,  but  the  craftsmen  complained  that  they  had  no 
voice  in  the  government. 

The  young  king,  who  inflicted  on  the  city  such  a  terrible 
half-century,  was  always  in  want  of  money  for  his  favourites, 
and  for  such  buildings  as  Westminster  Abbey  ;  and  the 
charters  of  the  city,  which  had  already  been  paid  for  in  hard 
coin,  stood  in  the  way  of  his  insatiable  demands.  Now  the 
oligarchs  or  ruling  families  stood  fast  by  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  the  city :  even  Simon  FitzMary  appears  to  have 
sided  with  them,  and  to  have  voiced  the  popular  sentiment  in 
refusing  to  pay  over  to  the  king  some  of  the  money  demanded. 
He  was  sheriff  in  1235-6  and  in  1246-7.  In  both  his  years- 
of  office  he  failed  to  pay  into  the  Exchequer  the  whole  of 
the  tax  assessed.  He  was  fined  the  first  time  and  arrested 
the  second. 

Henry  HI   was,  therefore,  anxious  to  humble  the  aristo- 


THE  FOUNDER 


29 


cratic  party,  and  to  extort  from  a  divided  city  all  he  could 
squeeze  out  of  it.  It  was  his  cue  to  play  off  one  party 
against  the  other,  while  he    watched  for  an  opportunity  of 


The  account  of  FitzMary  with  the  Exchequer  would  be  kept 
by  the  aid  of  these  notched  sticks.  Each  notcli  represented 
a  sum  of  money  according  to  its  width.  The  notches  were 
cut  on  the  same  side  of  a  wand  of  willow,  and  the  notched 
wand  was  then  sliced  down  the  middle.  One  side  (the  tally) 
was  given  as  a  receipt  for  payment,  and  the  other  kept  by 
the  Exchequer. 


overthrowing  the  city's  liberties  altogether.  In  this  trian- 
gular duel  he  appears  to  have  been  assisted,  as  a  rule,  by 
FitzMary. 

Our    founder    may    have   been  (as   I    suggest)    the    incor- 
ruptible champion    of   the   commons  against  the  privileged 


30     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

oligarchs.  His  fellow-aldermen,  however,  had  no  doubt 
about  his  being  the  tool  and  creature  of  the  king.  The 
chronicler,  who  was  a  fierce  partisan  on  the  "  Whig "  side, 
arraigns  him  as  a  traitor  to  the  city,  and  notes  with  unctuous 
complacency  his  disgrace.  "  He  had  bribed  the  king  " ;  he 
had  fomented  an  artificial  law-suit,  so  that  the  king  might 
intervene  as  a  Court  of  Appeal  against  the  jurisdiction  and 
privileges  of  London.  He  had  opposed  the  re-election  of  a 
member  of  one  of  the  ruling  families  as  sheriff,  shouting  out 
that  he  was  a  "  perjurer."  "  And  there  were  also  many  evil 
and  detestable  actions,  of  which  he  had  been  secretly  guilty 
against  the  franchises  of  the  city."  Accordingly  in  1248 
the  mayor,  who  was  willing  to  make  terms  with  the  king  on 
condition  that  he  might  purge  the  town  of  a  popular  agitator, 
deprived  Simon  FitzMary  (not  for  the  first  time)  of  his  alder- 
manry ;  and  the  men  of  the  ward  chose  Alexander,  of  Shore- 
ditch,  the  ironmonger,  in  his  stead — apparently  at  Walbrook. 

In  suchwise  FitzMary,  after  sitting  at  table  with  king  and 
aldermen  and  thanes — in  the  light  and  warmth  of  power — 
passes  swiftly  out  by  the  other  door,  and  the  light  of  history 
ceases  to  shine  upon  him. 

Perhaps,  however,  he  was  not  the  shifty,  insincere,  and 
intriguing  creature  of  the  aristocratic  tradition  :  possibly  his 
name  ought  rather  to  be  entered  on  London's  roll  of  fame. 
There  is  at  any  rate  just  an  incidental  allusion  to  him  in  the 
cartulary  of  the  Holy  Trinity  Priory,  Aldgate,  which  con- 
ceivably makes  for  a  more  favourable  interpretation  of  his 
character  and  policy. 

One  Osbert,  rector  of  St.  Mary  Bothaw  (Cannon  Street 
Station  will  indicate  the  neighbourhood  for  us),  gave  certain 
lands,  according  to  the  cartulary,  to  the  abbey  of  Bermondsey, 
and  Simon  FitzMary,  evidently  an  intimate  friend  of  his, 
witnessed  the  donation  with  his  signature  in  1248.  Now  it 
is  not  impossible  that  this  Osbert  was  a  member  of  a  famous 
family  which  belonged  to  the  governing  classes  of  the  city, 
and  bestowed  great  benefactions  on  houses  of  religion.  It 
was  William  Fitz  Osbert — he  wore  a  long  beard  in  scorn  of 
NoriDan  fashiori — who  die4  as  a  niartyr  on  behalf  of  public 


THE  FOUNDER 


31 


rights  in  1196,  about  fifty  years  before  the  date  of  the  deed 
I  examined.  He  deserted  his  own  class  and  gathered  the 
traders  and  artisans  to  his  standard,  saying  that  he  would  go 


'-y-s- 


'^. 


}p^' 


»    A 


^i       WD«<*«>«v<;i-«  I 


BISHOPSGATE  AND  SHOREDITCH   AS   IN  THE  THIRTEENTH   CENTURY. 

The  site  of  the  first  hospital  occupied  the  area  between  Dunning's  land  (N)  and  St.  Botolph's 
church  (S) :  on  the  east  the  highway  (Bishopsgate  Street)  was  the  boundary,  and  on  the  west 
Deepditch  (Blomtield  Street).  The  site  of  the  second  hospital  is  marked  on  the  sketch  by 
Finsbury  Circus.    The  site  of  "Staple  Hall,"  opposite  St.  Botolph's,  has  belonged  to  Bethlem 

since  1330  at  least. 

to  the  king  (Richard  I)  and  expose  the  selfishness  and  cor- 
ruption of  the  aldermen.  In  the  sight  of  the  woman  he  loved 
he  was  dragged  out  of  sanctuary  to  his  death  and  hanged 
under  the  elms  of  Smithfield  j  but  the  people  helcj  him  to  b^ 


32     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

a  saint,  and  women  spent  whole  nights  in  prayer  at  the 
scene  of  his  execution.  Miracles  soon  broke  out — the  arch- 
bishop in  vain  prohibiting  them — and  the  sick  were  healed 
by  contact  with  pieces  of  his  chains  and  clothes.  The 
memories  of  his  martyrdom  and  the  tradition  of  his  teaching 
survived  :  possibly  they  inspired  Simon  FitzMary  to  follow 
the  example  of  a  man  whose  career  and  convictions  in  so 
many  ways  resembled  his  own  :  possibly  they  were  the  link 
between  him  and  the  Osbert  of  the  document. 

It  will  be  seen  by  reference  to  the  sketch  plan  that  the 
"  houses   and    gardens,  marshes    and    orchards,"   donated    in 
1247  by  Simon  FitzMary,  are  approximately  covered  to-day 
by  Liverpool  Street  and  the  stations  of  the  Great  Eastern 
Railway,  of  the  North  London  Railway,  and  the  Metropolitan 
Railway.     Between   1865  and   1870  all  that  was  left  of  the 
original  donation — for  much  had  been  filched  in  the  course  of 
centuries — was  sold  to  the  Great  Eastern  Railway  and  the 
Metropolitan  Railway  Companies  for  a  sum  which  ran  into  six 
figures.     This  large  sum  of  money  went  to  swell  the  treasure 
chest  of  our  ancient  charity,  and   we   are  therefore  to-day 
deriving  benefit  from  the  donation  of  Simon,  the  son  of  Mary, 
while  his   name  and   beneficence   remain    without    adequate 
recognition.     The  founder  of  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital — an 
elder  sister — has  been  commemorated  in  Rahere  ward  and  a 
Rahere  street ;  there  is  neither  ward  in  our  hospital  nor  tablet 
in  Bishopsgate  to  perpetuate  the  memory  of  FitzMary,  twice 
sheriff  of  the  city  of  London  and  champion  of  the  craftsmen. 
Year  by  year  I,  at  least,  have  returned  to  give  thanks,  and 
have  striven  to  teach  others  to  show  their  gratitude,  for  the 
kindness  of  the  dead  at  a  festal  service  held  on  Founder's  Day. 
Each  year  I  have  also,  with  the  help  of  a  lantern  and  slides, 
sought  to  create  a  historic  sense  and  a  grateful  conscience  in 
those  who  have  reaped  a  harvest  where  they  have  never  sown. 
But  perhaps  this  history  of  mine — with  all  its  shortcomings 
— may  do   more.      I   may  be  destined  to  be   the    Orpheus 
who  rescues  Eurydice — who  brings  back  out  of  darkness  and 
oblivion  into  the  light  of  an  unclouded  day  the  true  founder 
of  Bethlehem  Hospital 


CHAPTER  V 

A  CENTURY  OF  SILENCE  AND   DISASTER 

A  HUNDRED  years  in  the  history  of  Bethlehem  Hospital^ 
Thrice  between  1247  and  1346  had  the  Death  Crier  in  his 
gruesome  livery  chanted  his  solemn  appeal  before  the  gate  of 
the  priory :  "  Good  people,  of  your  charity  pray  for  the  soul 
of  Henry  (or  Edward),  your  lord  the  king,  who  has  departed 
this  mortal  life."  A  hundred  years,  and  yet  the  house  only 
emerges  occasionally,  when  the  light  of  chronicle  or  lease 
falling  upon  it  reveals  existence  rather  than  progress. 

There  are  extant,  perhaps,  a  dozen  documents  of  one  kind 
and  another,  which  have  some  bearing  on  the  history  of  the 
hospital  in  this  century  of  silence  and  disaster,  and  it  is  sig- 
nificant that  the  most  important  of  them  are  dated  towards 
the  close  of  the  period.  In  the  first  place  it  will  be  interest- 
ing to  hear  how  far  the  estate  given  by  Simon  FitzMary  in 
1247  had  been  developed  for  purposes  of  building  and  revenue, 
and  I  will  therefore  translate  by  way  of  evidence  portions  of 
two  leases  dated  4th  August,  1330:  they  are  to  be  found 
in  the  archives  of  the  city  of  London  in  Letter-book  E, 
folio  207^. 

"Be  it  known  to  all  that  brother  William  de  Banham, 
procurator-general  of  the  order  of  the  Bethleemites,  has 
leased  and  farmed  out  to  Richard  de  Swanlond,  citizen  and 
fishmonger  of  London,  all  that  holding  known  as  '  de  Beth- 
lehem,' with  the  houses  and  shops  which  have  been  already 
erected  upon  it,  with  their  gardens  and  ponds,  together  with 
an  annual  revenue  of  twenty  shillings  payable  by  William  de 
Beauchamp,   and   with  all  other  appurtenances,   as   Brother 

4  i  ^^ 


34     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

William  holds  them  from  the  chamber  of  the  Guildhall, 
London.  The  aforesaid  holding  is  situated  without  the 
Bishop's  Gate  between  the  tenement  of  Adam  de  Burgoyne 
and  the  garden  of  Roger  Hubert  on  the  north,  and  on  the 
south  between  the  tenement  of  William  le  Rous  and  the 
garden  of  Master  Henry  [de  Colne],  the  rector  of  St.  Botolph's, 
Bishopsgate,  and  extends  on  the  east  from  the  king's  highway 
[Bishopsgate  Street]  and  the  tenement  of  Stephen  of  Abyndon 
to  the  common  moor  on  the  west"  [Moorfields], 

This  lease,  which  is  to  run  for  eleven  years,  contains  a 
covenant  binding  the  lessee  to  pay  forty  shillings  annually  at 
the  Guildhall  for  all  feudal  dues  and  services,  and  continues  as 
follows : — 

"  Moreover  the  said  brother,  William,  reserves  for  the  use 
of  himself  and  his  brethren  one  solar  [an  upper  room]  over 
the  Great  Gate,  which  faces  the  king's  highway,  together 
with  the  right  of  egress  and  ingress  at  will  through  the 
shop  near  the  gate,  together  with  one  private  room  in 
the  shop  at  the  foot  of  the  staircase  to  the  solar  aforesaid, 
as  well  as  a  stable  hard  by  the  private  room." 

It  is  impossible  to  check  the  boundaries  on  the  north 
from  the  names  in  the  lease,  but  in  the  light  of  later  informa- 
tion, it  is  probable  that  William  de  Banham  and  the  brethren 
had  raised  money  by  selling  plots  of  land  on  the  north, 
and  perhaps  on  the  frontage  of  the  street,  for  allusions  to 
alienation  occur  in  a  document  sixteen  years  later. 

The  names  in  ancient  documents  are  names  to  the  general 
reader,  and  nothing  more.  However,  the  index  of  the  city 
Letter-books,  or  a  calendar  of  the  Patent  Rolls,  will  enable 
me  to  infuse  a  little  life  even  into  dry  bones.  William  de 
Banham,  the  lessor,  for  example,  must  have  played  a 
prominent  part  in  the  Civil  War  between  Edward  l\  and 
Edward  HI.  In  the  reign  of  the  first  he  was  in  prison  at 
Corfe  Castle,  from  which  he  escaped ;  he  travelled  in  the 
retinue  of  his  successor.  In  1321  Roger  Hubert  was 
entrusted  with  the  keys  of  Bishop's  Gate :  it  was  his  duty 
to  close  the  main  gates  at  sunset  a;id  to  reopen  them  at 
sunrise :    the    wicket   gates   were    to   be   left   open    till   the 


A   CENTURY  OF  SILENCE  AND  DISASTER    35 

curfew   rang   at   St.  Martin's  le  Grand,  and   not  to   be  re- 
opened till  the  first  bell  of  Aeons  (St.  Thomas  d'Acre)  rang. 

The  site  of  the  buildings  mentioned  in  the  first  lease 
passed  out  of  the  hands  of  the  hospital  in  1870,  as  I 
have  already  mentioned.  But  the  second  lease,  granted  on 
the  same  date,  introduces  a  house  and  shop  on  the  eastern 
side  of  Bishopsgate,  which  is  not  included  in  the  foundation 
deed  of  1247  : — 

"  Be  it  known  to  all  that  Brother  William  de  Banham  has 
leased  to  Richard  de  Swanlond  that  house  called  *  Le 
Stapeledhall '  with  the  shop  and  grounds  adjoining,  as 
it  is  situated  between  the  tenement  of  John  Geryn  on  the 
north  and  the  tenement  of  John  Bird  on  the  south  and 
the  king's  highway  [Bishopsgate  Street]  on  the  west  in 
the  parish  of  St.  Botolph,  Bishopsgate  Without." 

The  term  of  this  lease  is  to  be  twelve  years,  and  the 
lessee  covenants  to  pay  three  shillings  every  quarter  in 
lieu  of  feudal  dues  to  the  nuns  of  St.  Helen's,  Bishopsgate. 

Quite  a  little  volume  of  history  may  be  written  round  this 
"  Stapeled  Hall "  (now,  in  part,  Devonshire  House),  the  site 
of  which  is  still  in  our  possession.  Scholars  are  divided 
as  to  the  origin  and  meaning  of  the  word  "  staple."  I 
imagine,  however,  that  the  Latin  v^ord  stabile  must  be 
the  parent  of  the  staples,  estapels,  stapuls,  etapes,  and 
other  terms  of  commerce.  The  word  stabile  might  have 
meant  a  stand  for  goods,  a  market  or  place  v^^here 
goods  stood,  and  possibly,  later  on,  a  standard.  At 
the  date  of  the  lease  (1330)  there  were  three  Staple 
Halls  in  London  just  outside  the  walls  of  the  city.  There 
was  the  Staple  Inn  which  still  attracts  the  lover  of  the 
picturesque  at  Holborn  Bars ;  a  second,  afterwards  known 
as  the  "  Old  Wool  Quay,"  stood  near  the  Custom  House ; 
the  third  v^as  also  on  a  trade  route — the  Ermyn  street, 
or  Roman  eastern  road.  These  staple  halls  were  custom- 
houses where  the  dues  payable  on  wool,  skins,  and  leather 
were  taken,  and  presumably  included  warehouses  for  the 
storage  of  these  commodities  with  accommodation  for 
merchants,  clerks,  and  others.     These   custom-houses    were 


36     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

outside  the  city,  which  was  governed  by  the  mayor  rather 
than  the  king,  inasmuch  as  the  proceeds  of  the  tolls  from 
these  exports  formed  part  of  the  king's  private  income. 
The  establishment  of  the  Staple  Halls  appears  to  date 
from  1 3 13,  when  Edward  II  ordered  that  these  goods 
(mostly  wool)  should  be  exported  at  fixed  places,  a  company 
of  woolstaplers  being  organized  with  mayor  and  constables. 

It  remains  to  conjecture  how  this  custom-house,  wool- 
warehouse,  or  wool  merchants'  residence,  with  its  shops  and 
gardens  came  into  the  hands  of  the  brothers  of  Bethlehem. 
It  is  conceivable  that  Simon  FitzMary,  if,  as  it  appears  from 
the  deed  of  foundation,  he  had  no  kith  or  kin,  might  have 
bequeathed  his  own  house  to  them.  He  might  have  been 
a  woolstapler,  and  this  might  have  been  his  warehouse  and 
mansion.  I  shall  come  back  to  the  site  of  the  "  Stapeled 
Hall "  to  see  Queen  Elizabeth,  to  dine  with  a  lord,  or  to 
attend,  if  soldiers  and  mob  will  permit  me,  some  first  day 
meetings  of  the  Society  of  Friends. 

We  may  pass  from  lands  and  houses  to  the  brothers  to 
whom  they  belonged.  Whatever  was  the  extent  of  their 
activities,  the  revenues  of  the  order  were  insufficient  to  main- 
tain the  work  of  a  hospice  for  the  poor  and  infirm,  and  they 
had  to  travel  about  the  country  begging  for  funds.  In  the 
early  part  of  his  reign  Edward  III  issued  half  a  dozen 
licences  to  the  brothers  authorizing  them  to  beg  for  their 
needs.  The  language  of  each  "  Protection  "  is  much  the 
same,  but  I  will  transcribe  a  licence  for  1329  which  was  to  hold 
good  for  two  years,  because  it  is  the  first  document  in  which 
the  word  "  hospital  "  (hospice)  is  applied  to  the  priory. 

"  To  the  archbishops  and  bishops,  to  the  abbots  and  priors 
as  well  as  to  all  bailiffs  and  to  our  faithful  subjects  in 
England,  Ireland,  and  Wales.  You  are  hereby  to  under- 
stand that  we  have  received  under  our  special  protection  the 
master  and  brethren  of  the  hospital  of  St.  Mary  of  Bethlehem 
without  Bishopsgate  as  well  as  their  lands,  revenues,  and  all 
their  possessions.  We,  therefore,  beg  of  you  to  extend  a 
kindly  welcome  to  any  of  them  who  come  before  you  to 
gather  alms,  and  we  desire  that  you  will  allow  them  to  appeal 


A    REQUIEM    MASS. 

(By  permission  of  Messrs.  Seeley  &  Co.) 
(See  p.  48.) 


Devonshire  House,  Bishopsgate,  occupies  the  sites  of  the  earl  of  Devonshire's 
mansion,  Staple  Hall,  and  the  Dolphin  inn. 

To  face  p.  36. 


A    CENTURY  OF  SILENCE  AND  DISASTER     37 

to  your  people  for  alms  without  hindrance  in  your  churches. 
Moreover,  we  give  commandment  to  our  bailiffs  and  our 
faithful  subjects  to  defend  the  said  master  and  brethren,  or 
their  agents,  and  to  suffer  no  injury  to  be  done  to  them  or  to 
their  goods." 

The  language  of  this  deed,  in  which  the  king  is  said  to  have 
taken  the  lands  and  revenues  of  the  brothers  under  his  special 
protection,  rather  suggests  that  he  had  already  seized  the 
hospital  as  an  alien  priory. 

No  news  is  often  bad  news.  The  meagre  information 
which  the  documents  of  the  fourteenth  century  afford  to 
us  hardly  breaks  the  silence  of  the  thirteenth  century. 
But  the  silence,  though  we  knew  it  not  at  the  time,  really 
portended  disaster.  For  many  years  I  had  passed  by  the 
reference  to  the  documents,  in  which  the  story  of  the  tragedy 
lay  buried,  without  guessing  what  was  covered  by  the  innocent 
phrases  of  the  official  calendar.  But,  as  I  translated  the 
whole  of  the  original  of  folio  128,  in  the  city  Letter-book  F, 
I  felt  as  if  I  was  reading  the  diary  of  those  who  sat  through 
the  long  vigil  of  the  night  by  the  bedside  of  a  sufferer, 
stripped  of  everything,  abandoned  by  nearly  everybody,  and, 
as  it  seemed,  at  the  point  of  death. 

It  is  in  part  a  petition  presented  in  1346  to  the  mayor  and 
aldermen  by  the  "  master.  Brother  John  Matthew  de  Norton, 
and  brethren  of  the  order  of  knighthood  of  the  Blessed  Mary 
of  Bethlehem."  The  petitioners,  having  considered  their 
miserable  plight,  earnestly  plead  that  they  may  be  received 
under  the  protection  and  patronage  of  the  city.  In  the 
course  of  their  story  they  recount  how  the  present  house  had 
been  built  further  back  than  the  memory  of  any  man  living 
on  a  plot  of  vacant  land  out  of  the  alms  and  legacies  given 
from  ancient  times  by  the  faithful  people  of  Christ  in  divers 
parts  of  England,  Scotland,  Wales,  and  Ireland.  But  master 
and  brethren  had  "  gone  the  way  of  all  flesh,"  before  they  had 
been  able  to  provide  any  permanent  endowment,  or  secure 
influential  patronage.  Their  failure  to  make  provision  was 
due  to  the  disasters  which  from  the  first  days  of  its  infancy 
had   stunted    the   growth   of  the    monastery.      "  They   had 


38     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

suffered  from  losses,  damage  to  property,  acts  of  violence, 
oppression,  extortion,  and  danger  of  death  ;  from  reviling, 
scandal,  and  their  own  dissensions.  Even  from  the  very 
beginning  of  its  history  the  house  had  been  utterly  defence- 
less, and  in  continual  disrepute ;  to-day  it  lay  open  to  any 
attack  and  misrepresentation — widowed,  as  it  were,  orphaned, 
and  altogether  desolate."     The  result  of  all  these  misfortunes 


A   CITY   GATE. 


was  that  it  had  been  unable  to  administer  its  own  affairs,  to 
defend  its  own  interests,  or  to  maintain  the  brothers  of  an 
order — "so  worthy,  so  famous,  and  so  canonical." 

This,  then,  was  our  century  of  disaster,  poverty  and  failure. 
Every  day  in  that  hundred  years  a  procession  of  poor  and 
sick  and  devout  streamed  through  the  stately  gate  of  Bishop 
Erkenwald.      But   it  was   a   mortifying   recognition  of  the 


A    CENTURY  OF  SILENCE   AND  DISASTER     39 

poverty  and  disrepute  of  the  brethren  that  they  hurried  past 
the  gabled  houses  of  "  Betleem  "  on  their  way  to  the  richer 
and  more  popular  convent  of  St.  Mary  Spital,  which  towered 
in  splendour  and  usefulness  lower  down  on  the  right:  Spital 
Square,  Norton  Folgate,  marks  the  site  of  our  ancient  rival. 

But  the  priory  had  been  built  on  land  given  by  a  citizen 
and  sheriff  of  London,  and  "  princely  benefactions  "  had,  at 
the  first,  ^'  been  given  by  citizens  of  London  to  those  who 
were  serving  God  in  this  place  for  pious,  pure,  and  charitable 
uses."  To  the  mayor  and  aldermen,  therefore,  they  make 
their  supplication. 

"  Having  considered  the  princely  benefactions  made  and 
the  alms  collected  by  the  citizens  in  the  past,  and  having 
taken  into  account  the  honour  and  glory  which  would  accrue 
to  the  city,  should  it  come  to  the  relief  of  so  famous  an 
order,  they  have  thought  good  to  make  supplication  to  the 
mayor  and  aldermen  that  they  would  receive  the  brethren 
themselves  as  well  as  their  house,  with  all  the  rights  and 
privileges  appertaining  to  it,  under  their  special  and  perpetual 
patronage,  maintenance,  and  protection,  as  a  remedy  neces- 
sary for  themselves  and  their  successors,  and  for  ever  effectual 
against  such  great  tribulations." 

This  felicitous  appeal  to  the  memories  of  the  past  re- 
echoed sympathetically  within  the  walls  of  the  council 
chamber,  and  the  mayor  and  aldermen  proceeded  to  give 
a  very  cordial  reply  to  the  petition  of  the  master  and 
brethren. 

"  Because  we  find  the  petition  to  be  full  of  religion,  good- 
will, and  charity,  because  we  desire  to  follow,  as  far  as  we 
may,  with  the  grace  of  God,  in  the  pious,  the  kindly,  and 
charitable  footsteps  of  our  fathers  and  predecessors,  and 
because  we  desire  to  promote  the  glory  of  God,  and  the 
exaltation  of  the  same  house  and  order,  we  have,  therefore, 
taken  under  our  protection  the  master  and  brethren  and  all 
their  successors  for  ever." 

Some  five  days  later  {i.e.,  on  20th  October,  1346)  this 
expression  of  the  goodwill  of  the  city  towards  the  hos- 
pital  was    translated    into   a   formal    "  agreement   between 


40     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

Richard  Lacer  and  Brother  John  Matthew  de  Norton," 
touching  the  election,  the  duties,  and  the  jurisdiction  of  the 
mayor  and  two  aldermen,  or  any  two  other  citizens,  to  be 
annually  elected. 


THE   HABIT    AXD    STAR    OF   THE    ORDER    OF   THE    KNIGHTS    OF    THE    BLESSED 
MARY   OF   BETHLEHEM   AS   IN    I257. 

Thus  was  the  garrison  relieved  and  the  enemy  put  to 
flight — put  to  flight  all  their  anxieties,  all  their  unpopularity, 
all  their  dissensions,  and  all  the  stagnation  of  their  work — 
just  three  days  before  the  anniversary  of  the  foundation. 


A    CENTURY  OF  SILENCE  AND  DISASTER     41 

We  hope  that  the  city,  which  had  raised  the  siege,  invited 
the  hungry  "  Knights  of  the  Star  "  to  eat,  drink,  and  be 
merry  on  the  anniversary  over  the  agreement.  Mediaeval 
aldermen  began  dining  at  twelve,  and  each  course — with  music 
and  dancing  between — was  often  a  dinner  in  itself.  They 
ransacked  woods  and  marshes  for  all  sorts  and  sizes  of  birds, 
which  were  served  with  the  sweetest  of  sauces.  And  the 
cook  would  send  up  between  each  course  a  "subtlety,"  or 
composition  in  sugar:  perhaps  on  23rd  October,  1346,  it  was 
the  "  Maydon  Marie  and  Gabrielle,"  in  honour  of  the  hospital 
of  our  Lady  of  Bethlehem. 

Doubtless  the  conversation  took  some  colour  from  the 
woeful  state  of  the  Holy  Land.  The  chapter  of  Bethlehem 
had  been  driven  out  of  it,  it  would  seem,  finally  in  1291,  and 
the  Franciscans  were  in  charge  of  the  "  venerable  church  "  of 
the  Nativity,  as  they  are  to-day.  But  Richard  Lacer,  the 
mayor,  was  optimistic,  and  he  took  for  a  toast  some  sentences 
out  of  the  master's  petition. 

"  May  the  order  of  the  Blessed  Mary  of  Bethlehem,  which 
was  the  first  order  of  the  Church  catholic  created  next  after 
the  order  of  Christ  and  His  apostles,  and  descends,  as  origi- 
nally created,  directly  from  that  order,  for  ever  flourish  by 
means  of  this  house  among  all  the  orders  of  the  Church 
catholic,  and  may  it  fulfil  the  aims  and  objects  for  which 
it  was  at  the  first  introduced  and  instituted  from  such  ancient 
times  by  so  many  holy  men  and  for  such  holy  ends  ! " 

And  those  who  sat  at  the  high  table,  or  lower  down  at  the 
trestled  tables  in  the  rush-strewn  hall,  murmured  a  fervent 
"Amen." 

The  choicest  wine  from  the  vale  of  Gloucester — for  Eng- 
land had  its  own  vineyards  once  upon  a  time — seemed  to-day 
to  exhale  a  magic  power.  And,  as  the  loving-cup  passed 
round  from  mayor  to  master,  and  from  monk  to  citizen,  the 
men  who  wore  on  their  copes  and  mantles  the  red  star  of 
Bethlehem,  with  its  centre  of  azure  blue,  were  vouchsafed 
a  vision  of  the  days  to  be.  It  might  have  been  a  fleeting 
glimpse  of  airy  galleries  seen  through  waving  palms  and 
bright   clusters    of  flowers,    where    men    and  women   rested 


42     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

quietly,  if  sometimes  sadly,  among  their  books  and  pictures. 
But  as  yet  no  one  profanely  dreamed  that  the  gift  of  healing 
lay  in  the  hands  of  nature  rather  than  with  the  Church, 
and  therefore,  as  in  an  ecstasy,  they  seemed  to  see  amid 
wreaths  of  smoke  the  censer  rise  and  fall ;  and  they  were 
blessing  multitudes  of  sick  folk  led  forward  to  kneel  before 
a  famous  shrine  of  miracles  and  healing. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    CITIZENS 

The  vision  of  the  brothers  seemed  but  a  foretaste  of  the 
prosperity  and  popularity  already  awaiting  the  priory.  The 
mayor  and  aldermen  decided,  as  we  have  seen,  to  save  such 
an  ancient  monument  of  civic  charity :  they  believed  that  it 
might  "rise  again  and  go  on  its  way,"  if  only  it  were  "assisted 
and  strengthened  by  the  pious  alms  of  the  citizens."  How- 
ever, they  were  men  of  business,  and  they  drew  up  an 
agreement,  duly  signed  by  both  parties,  which  was  evidently 
intended  to  prevent  the  recurrence  of  former  scandals.  From 
the  documents  already  quoted,  I  gather  that  the  house  had 
been  indiscriminately  plundered  by  its  foreign  visitor  and  his 
representatives,  by  king  and  citizen,  by  disbanded  soldier,  by 
dishonest  collector,  and  verminous  tramp.  And  there  must 
have  been  chaos,  waste  and  peculation,  where  there  should 
have  been  discipline,  supervision,  economy,  and  a  ledger. 

To  enter  into  more  detail — the  Agreement,  which  is  en- 
dorsed "Bedlem"  in  Letter-book  F,  folio  129,  sets  forth  that 
two  aldermen  are  to  be  chosen  each  year  on  St.  Matthew's 
Qav  in  the  chamber  of  the  Guildhall  directly  after  the 
election  of  the  sheriffs  in  its  hall,  the  first  by  the  mayor 
and  aldermen,  and  the  second  by  the  master  and  brethren 
of  the  house.  These  two  governors,  as  we  may  call  them, 
"are  fo" serve  for  one  year,  and  there  is  to  be  a  simHar 
"election  each  year,  until  all  the  four-and-twenty  aldermen 
have  been  elected  on  the  administration  of  "Bedlem."  The 
four-and-twenty  aldermen  are  finally  by  virtue  of  their  elec- 
tion to  form  a  permanent  court  of  governors,  the  mayor  on 

43 


44     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

every  occasion  acting  as  president.  When  every  alderman 
in  succession  has  served  his  year  of  office,  "  other  citizens — 
good  and  faithful,  able  and  devout " — are  to  be  elected,  year 
by  year,  in  the  same  manner,  and  with  the  same  rights  and 
privileges,  according  to  seniority. 

So  far  as  their  duties  and  jurisdiction  are  concerned — "  It 
shall  pertain  to  their  office  to  give  audience  to  all,  to  exercise 
supervision  over  all,  and  to  see  that  master,  brethren,  and 
servants  labour  with  diligence  in  matters  temporal,  and 
devote  themselves  earnestly  to  everything  that  tends  to  the 
usefulness  and  advancement  of  the  house  and  order.  In 
the  case  of  disobedience,  let  the  offender  be  punished,  if  he 
consents  thereto,  at  the  next  chapter  according  to  the  rules 
of  the  order  and  the  statutes  of  the  house.  But,  should  he 
refuse  to  submit,  let  him  receive  punishment  on  an  appointed 
day  in  the  hall  of  the  order  at  the  hands  of  the  master  and 
brethren  in  the  presence  of  the  aldermen  acting  as  assessors." 

The  two  governors  were  also,  we  learn,  to  insist  on  a 
searching  audit  twice  a  year,  at  Easter  and  Michaelmas. 
No  further  alienation  of  houses  and  lands  was  to  be  per- 
mitted, no  leases  granted  for  a  term  of  years,  and  no 
admission  of  brothers  and  sisters  or  members  of  the  con- 
fraternity was  to  take  place,  without  the  knowledge  and 
consent  of  the  two  governors. 

In  return  for  such  supervision,  and  for  the  assistance 
promised,  the  master  and  brethren  covenanted  to  allow  the 
mayor,  aldermen,  and  other  governors  the  right  to  sit  on  the 
raised  dais  of  honour,  and  to  wear  the  habit  of  the  order 
along  with  the  master.  Finally,  after  their  death,  their  obits, 
or  days  of  memorial,  were  to  be  kept  on  the  Feast  of  the 
Epiphany,  and  throughout  the  octave,  for  ever. 

But  the  citizens  are  devout  and  charitable,  as  well  as  men 
of  business.  They  begin  to  take  an  interest  in  the  comple- 
tion of  the  new  chapel ;  they  become  members  of  confra- 
ternities which  kept  lights  burning  before  the  altar  in  the 
oratory  ;  and  the  hospital  is  remembered  in  their  wills.  For 
example,  John  Nasing,  brewer,  whose  will  was  signed  in 
1 361,  orders  that  the  "knives  attached  to  his  girdle  "(they 


THE   CITIZENS  45 

were  for  ornament  and  not  for  use)  should  be  sold,  and  half 
the  proceeds  devoted  to  the  "  new  work  [or  building]  of  the 
church  of  St.  Mary  de  Bedelem " :  Matilda  Balsham  be- 
queaths her  "  gardens  within  the  cloister "  for  the  same 
object.  Then  there  is  that  worthy  old  fellow,  John  of 
Croydon,  sheriff  and  fishmonger.  In  1378  he  sat  down  to 
make  his  will.  He  had  to  decide  a  very  serious  point  on 
which  he  vacillated  a  long  time,  the  destiny  of  his  "  Norfolk 
bedstead,"  and  of  his  bed  "  worked  with  dolphins  in  tapestry." 
This  at  last  achieved,  he  left  money  to  the  leper  in  the  lazar- 
house  and  to  the  prisoner  in  Newgate  to  pray  for  his  soul — 
the  greater  the  sufferer,  the  greater  the  efficacy  of  his  prayers. 
Finally,  he  bequeathed  something  for  the  "work"  of  St.  Mary 
de  Bedelem,  stipulating  that  his  name  should  be  "  entered  in 
its  book  to  be  had  in  remembrance." 

This  would  be  the  Book  of  Obituaries,  Book  of  Bene- 
factors, or,  as  it  was  sometimes  called,  the  Book  of  Life. 
It  would  contain  a  martyrology  and  an  illuminated  calendar 
of  the  year,  together  with  notes  on  chronology  and  on  the 
unlucky  days  of  the  month.  Interspersed  throughout  the 
calendar  would  be  entered  at  the  proper  dates  the  memorial 
days  of  benefactors,  "  that  by  the  perishable  memorial  of 
written  names  they  might  be  written  in  the  pages  of  the 
heavenly  book."  The  benefactors  of  the  hospital  rejoiced 
to  think  that  on  their  anniversaries  their  names  would  be 
recited  at  the  early  mass,  laid  upon  the  altar,  and  commended 
to  the  mercy  of  God  during  the  Holy  Mysteries.  John  of 
Croydon  passed  away  in  peace,  for  he  heard  the  priest 
murmuring  in  his  ear — "  Right  dear  in  the  sight  of  the  Lord 
is  the  death  of  His  saints." 

It  would  not  be  accurate  to  say  that  the  Drapers'  Com- 
pany owes  its  existence  to  Bethlehem  Hospital.  But  as 
early  as  1361  the  drapers,  who  then  clustered  about  Corn- 
hill,  enrolled  themselves  in  the  confraternity  of  St.  Mary  of 
Bethlehem,  and  annually  on  the  Feast  of  the  Purification  of 
Our  Lady  (2nd  February)  met  to  hear  mass  in  the  chapel  : — 

"  A  brotherhood  was  begun  by  men  of  London  for  the 
amendment  of  their  lives,  by  assent  of  Brother  William  Tytte, 


46     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

brother   of  the  said   hospital   of    our   Lady  of   Bethlehem, 
London,  which  is  a  cell  of  the  place  of  Bethleem,  and   by 


3ttu(t'- 


^  rb    Rl*  ^*-  luce  euntjl*-  fni  if'  j):  •  re .     jc]  i^Ql  in 
fico?ptctie  • 


ttni 


jmw  ^'•fiibeirtDftjem'^*. 


SAMPLE   PAGE   FROM   A   BENEFACTORS'   BOOK   WITH    IMAGINARY   DETAILS. 


other  good  people,  drapers  of  Cornhill,  and  other  good  men 
and  women." 


THE   CITIZENS  47 

In  some  form  or  other,  no  doubt,  the  drapers,  or  certain 
classes  of  the  trade,  acted  as  a  body  for  trade  purposes  as 
early  as  the  reign  of  Henry  I,  but  the  fact  remains  that  the 
Drapers'  Company  did  not  receive  their  first  regular  charter 
of  incorporation  till  1364,  or  three  years  later  than  the  date 
of  the  confraternity  of  drapers. 

The  members  of  this  guild  are  to  be  people  of  good 
character,  or  they  will  be  ousted  for  ever  :  they  are  to  wear 
a  livery,  and  to  pay  for  it  at  once  :  dinner  bills  must  be  paid 
on  the  next  day :  misfortune  is  to  be  helped  out  of  the 
common  box :  expulsion  is  to  follow  gambling,  or  failure  to 
pay  the  chaplain's  salary  :  at  death  a  member  may  be  buried 
in  the  churchyard  at  Bethlem,  if  he  will,  the  brothers  and 
sisters  being  present  at  the  funeral  service  in  their  livery. 
The  drapers  were  associated  with  us  for  religious  and  social, 
rather  than  for  commercial,  purposes.  Nevertheless,  if  any 
of  the  said  brotherhood  shall  be  found  "  practising  works  of 
deceit  on  the  common  people,  and  in  slander  of  the  said 
brotherhood,  he  shall  be  expelled  for  ever."  The  convent 
would  be  the  richer  for  its  association  with  the  drapers,  and 
out  of  this  confraternity  may  have  grown  another  which  was 
at  work  for  the  benefit  of  the  "  distraught  and  frenzied " 
in  1519. 

The  growing  popularity  of  the  order  injured  the  rector 
of  their  parish  church,  and  he  threatened  retaliation.  How- 
ever, in  the  May  of  1362 — in  the  previous  year  we  were 
watching  the  drapers  at  mass  in  the  convent  oratory  one 
rainy  day  in  February — the  master  and  brethren  made  their 
peace  with  him.  Master  John  de  Bradeley  of  St.  Botolph's, 
Bishopsgate  Without,  had  suffered  as  much  from  the  intrusion 
of  these  privileged  regulars  as  the  secular  clergy  usually 
suffered  when  monks  made  a  settlement  in  their  parish. 

I  discovered  the  amusing  story  of  the  quarrel  in  the 
library  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  :  it  illustrates  the  legitimate 
annoyance  of  the  parochial  clergy,  when  they  found  a 
religious  order  coaxing  away  the  members  of  their  regular 
congregation,  and  diverting  fees  and  tithes  from  their  proper 
destiny.     Such  an  order  as  that  of  the  Star  of  Bethlehem 


48     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

acknowledged  no  episcopal  jurisdiction,  being  responsible 
to  the  pope  alone.  It  was  difficult,  therefore,  to  prevent 
the  brothers  from  fishing  in  waters  not  their  own.  The 
words  "  slander,"  "  abuse,"  and  "  molestation,"  which  fall 
from  the  lips  of  the  ruffled  brethren,  suggest  that  the  rector 
stigmatized  the  poaching  of  his  rivals  in  vigorous  language : 
he  also  threatened  a  campaign  in  the  courts  of  London  and 
Rome.  Fortunately,  at  a  critical  moment,  "  mutual  friends 
intervened,"  convinced  both  the  belligerents  that  litigation 
was  a  ruinous  remedy,  and  succeeded  in  getting  the  signatures 
of  both  parties  to  a  permanent  agreement. 

The  master  and  brethren  of  the  "  house  or  oratory  of  the 
Blessed  Mary  of  Bedelem  "  gained  something,  and  gave  up 
something,  under  the  terms  of  the  compromise.  They  were, 
indeed,  to  be  allowed  to  complete  the  chapel,  for  the  building 
of  which  they  had  already  received  (as  we  have  noticed) 
many  gifts  and  legacies,  and  to  hang  bells  for  ringing  in 
its  belfry.  They  were  to  have  the  right — "without  John 
de  Bradeley  to  say  to  them  nay " — to  perform  Divine 
services  and  to  celebrate  the  sacraments  in  their  chapel, 
and,  as  many  of  the  devouter  folk  credited  the  monks  and 
their  cemetery  with  superior  sanctity,  they  were  granted  the 
privilege  of  interring  such  in  their  consecrated  ground.  But, 
on  the  other  hand,  all  burial  fees  in  such  cases  were  to  be 
shared  equally  with  the  rector  of  St.  Botolph's,  Bishopsgate 
Without,  if  he  were  the  rector  of  the  people  buried.  Further- 
more the  services  in  the  convent  church  and  the  administration 
of  the  sacraments  were,  as  a  rule,  to  be  confined  to  the  order 
and  its  servants.  Finally,  in  the  plainest  and  most  binding 
phraseology  of  the  law,  the  brothers  were  forbidden  to  touch 
the  tithes,  oblations,  obventions,  or  any  other  dues  of  the 
rector  of  their  parish,  who  was  to  be  compensated  by  an 
annual  sum  of  thirteen  shillings  and  fourpence  for  the 
spiritual  raids  of  the  brothers  of  Bedelem. 

Unfortunately,  some  passages  in  the  manuscript  call  up 
the  picture  of  a  tired  copyist  and  some  dropped  lines. 
Nevertheless  certain  of  the  sentences  or  expressions  used 
in  the  mediaeval  strip  of  parchment  enable  me  to  reveal  the 


THE   CITIZENS  49 

fresco  beneath  the  whitewash.  For  example,  the  growth 
of  the  stunted  priory  is  indicated  by  its  passage  from  an 
"oratory"  towards  a  "chapel,"  and  it  is,  as  in  1346, 
"commonly  reputed  to  be  an  order  of  knighthood."  One 
last  point  which  is  but  a  conjecture.  A  proper  name  in  the 
indenture,  transcribed  for  me  as  Saudelee,  refers,  I  fancy,  to  a 
man  of  influence  at  the  court  of  the  king,  one  Sir  James 
Audley,  or  De  Audley.  In  a  later  chapter  one  of  my  wit- 
nesses explains  that  Edward  III  placed  Monsieur  James 
de  Audley  in  charge  of  the  hospital  as  its  warden.  No  date 
is  given  for  this  exercise  of  royal  patronage,  but  it  would 
appear  to  be  after  1350  and  before  1375.  In  our  manuscript 
under  the  date  of  1362  this  knight  is  spoken  of  as  a  "  founder 
of  the  house,"  and  the  new  chapel  appears  to  have  been 
erected  as  a  memorial  of  his  influence  or  generosity. 

The  sun  was  shining  at  last,  but,  alas  !  fresh  clouds  were 
already  gathering  on  the  horizon. 

There  are  daughters  who  are  doomed  to  repeat  the 
tragedies  of  their  mothers'  lives.  In  the  Holy  Land  the 
Saracen  was  ever  in  ambush,  ready  at  any  moment  to  hurl 
fire  and  steel  against  the  venerable  basilica  of  Bethlehem, 
and  it  has  been  the  fate  of  Bethlehem  Hospital  to  suffer 
again  and  again  from  the  invasion  of  various  sorts  of 
Saracens. 

In  1347,  for  example,  the  angel  of  death  spread  his  wings 
to  the  blast  on  some  battlefield  in  China,  and  breathed  as 
he  passed  over  England,  in  1361,  plague  and  famine  and 
disaster.  The  monk  of  Bedelem  went  out  with  hawk  and 
hounds  to  hunt  in  Lambeth  marshes,  and  his  hounds  returned 
alone.  Benefactors  were  lighting  a  candle  in  honour  of  our 
Lady  of  Bedelem,  when  the  light  of  life  was  quenched  for 
ever.  Indeed,  so  many  of  the  benefactors  of  the  monastery 
perished  in  the  Black  Death  that  a  cry  of  despair  from  its 
impoverished  monks  reached  the  ears  of  Urban  V.  In  reply 
the  pope  out  of  his  treasury,  overflowing  with  the  merits  earned 
for  it  by  saint  and  martyr,  graciously  granted  a  spiritual  con- 
tribution, which  rallied  new  friends  around  the  house. 

In  the  midst  of  death  we  are  in    life  :  the   Black    Death 

5 


50     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

gave  wages  and  liberty  to  the  labourer :  it  deepened  the 
charity  and  religion  of  those  who  survived  the  pestilence, 
and  the  hospice  benefited  from  that  devoutness  and  sympathy 
which   often  follows  bereavement  or  disaster.     In   1367,  for 


THE  CHOIR  OF  THE  CHAPEL  OF  THE  BISHOP  OF  BETHLEHEM, 
CLAMECY,  FRANCE. 

It  is  now  the  dining-room  of  tlie  Hotel  de  la  Boule-d'Or. 


instance,  there  was  a  rumour  that  the  bishop  of  Bethlehem — 
long  settled  in  Clamecy,  France,  with  his  chapter — proposed 
to  hand  over  the  hospital  and  its  tenants  for  a  sum  of  ready 
money  to  the  highest  bidder.  This  system  of  farming-out  had 
already  proved  most  disastrous  to  the  welfare  of  the  hospice 


777^   CITIZENS  51 

and  its  poor.  Accordingly  the  mayor  wrote  the  following 
letter  of  courteous  remonstrance  to  the  bishop,  by  the  hands 
of  "  his  dear  friend,  Master  Roger  de  Freton,"  presumably 
the  prior  : — 

"  To  the  very  reverend  and  honourable  father  in  God, 
the  bishop  of  Bedlem,  the  mayor  and  aldermen  of  the  city 
of  London,  in  England,  who  are  at  his  service  in  all  things, 
offer  homage  and  all  reverence : — 

"  Certain  good  folk  of  the  city  of  London,  who  are  worthy 


^5tel   de   la   Boule  -  d'o^. 


A    CLAMEGY    (Nievre) 


Omnibus  d  ions  les  Trains,  —  Voitares  a  volonii 


La,   Salle    h    Manger    est    le    Chceur  de    I'Eglise    dpiscopale  dc    Bethltl-em 
Guillaume   HI,  comtc  de  Nevers,   I'a  fondee  en   1147. 


"  SIC  TRANSIT   GLORIA   MUNDI  !  " 

of  credit  by  reason  of  their  almsgiving  and  their  perfect 
charity,  have  shown  to  us,  most  reverend  father,  that  the  poor 
and  humble  hospital  of  Bedelem  without  Bishopsgate,  in  the 
suburb  of  the  said  city,  which  was  founded  by  our  ancestors 
in  honour  of  the  glorious  Virgin  Mary,  the  mother  of  our 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  God  Almighty,  is  about  to  be  let  to  farm 
by  your  advice.  Now  this  would  be  very  prejudicial  and 
injurious  at  all  times  to  the  said  hospital,  and  opposed  to 
public  sentiment.  For  the  master  and  brethren  of  the  said 
hospital  who  are  now  dwelling  in  that  house  are  people  of 


52     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

good  reputation  and  manner  of  life,  and  they  have  commenced 
the  great  and  worthy  work  of  a  chapel  in  the  said  hospital, 
and  this  worthy  work  cannot  be  brought  to  a  successful 
conclusion  without  the  alms  of  the  mayor  and  aldermen  and 
other  good  folk.  And  at  present  many  good  people  are  daily 
withdrawing  their  alms  from  the  said  hospital  for  the  reason 
aforesaid.  Wherefore  we  pray  your  good  lordship  that  the 
said  hospital  may  not  be  farmed  out  without  the  common 
assent  of  the  said  city,  for  such  a  thing  would  turn  to  the 
great  dishonour  of  yourself,  and  to  the  injury  of  the  hospital 
for  all  time.  May  the  Holy  Spirit  always  have  you  in  His 
keeping,  and  may  He  grant  you  a  long  and  happy  life." 

For  eight  years  more  the  baker  of  the  "  longe  house " 
in  the  "  northlond  "  baked  his  daily  batch  of  loaves  without 
a  misgiving :  for  eight  years  more  Brother  Thomas,  the 
pardoner,  went  out  through  the  "  forparadys "  on  his 
begging-tour  in  Kent,  glib  of  tongue  and  jolly  of  face :  for 
eight  years  more  the  withered  prior,  always  apprehensive  of 
some  ill,  climbed  up  the  stairs  to  his  "  chamber  above  the 
Great  Gate."  And  then  the  Saracens  in  another  guise 
appeared  ;  and  he  who  knocked  so  loudly  and  so  imperiously 
demanded  entrance  in  the  king's  name. 


V 


CHAPTER   VII 


THE   KING 


X 


A  MESSENGER. 
(After  a  mediceval  drawing.) 

This  is  the  picture  of  the  messenger  who  bade  the  porter 
open  the  gate  in  the  name  of  the  king  :  he  was  paid  three- 
pence a  day  and  had  four  shillings  and  eightpence  a  year  to 
buy  shoes. 

And  this  is  the  sort  of  letter — for  it  is  modelled  on  an 
extant  example — which  Edward  III  might  have  written, 
when  he  seized  the  alien  priory  of  Bethleem. 

"  Inasmuch  as  the  king  of  France  hath  seized  our  inherit- 
ance,  plundering,  burning  and    slaying ;   and    forasmuch  as 

53 


54     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

we  have  with  the  advice  of  our  council  ordained  that  all 
lands,  tenements,  and  goods  within  our  realm  belonging  to 
Frenchmen,  whether  secular  or  religious,  shall  be  wrested  from 
the  hands  of  the  king  of  France  :  we  have,  therefore,  assigned 
to  you,  William,  the  charge  of  taking  possession  on  our  behalf 
of  all  the  goods  of  aliens,  which  belong  to  the  priory,  of  which 
we  hereby  appoint  you  vicar ;  and  you  are  to  appear  in 
person  before  us  and  our  council  at  Westminster  seven  days 
hence  to  give  an  account  of  your  revenues  and  disbursements. 
Do  all  diligence  that  we  suffer  not  by  your  neglect." 

The  hospital  was  the  daughter-house  of  a  foreign  convent 
in  France,  to  which  it  still  paid  an  annual  "  apport "  of 
thirteen  shillings  and  fourpence.  Such  a  house  naturally 
enough  remained  in  intercourse  and  correspondence  with  the 
headquarters  of  its  order.  However,  when  war  broke  out 
with  France,  as  happened  in  1337  and  1369,  the  king  at  once 
seized  the  revenues  of  all  alien  priories,  and  diverted  them 
from  the  French  into  the  English  exchequer.  In  time  of  war 
alien  monks  in  England  were,  of  course,  objects  of  suspicion  ; 
in  1346  it  was  proposed  to  banish  them,  or  at  least  to  intercept 
all  letters  passing  between  English  and  French  monasteries. 

Alien  priories  were  sequestrated  by  the  crown  notably  in 
1285,  1337,  and  1369,  and,  indeed,  documentary  allusions 
indicate  that  Bethlehem  Hospital  was  seized  more  than 
once.  For  example,  on  i6th  December,  1367,  Edward  HI 
ordered  the  arrest  of  William,  the  warden,  and  Ralph 
Chircheman,  the  proctor,  of  the  hospital.  They  were  charged 
with  obtaining  money  all  over  England  by  means  of  forged 
indulgences,  and  were  handed  over  to  the  archbishop  of 
Canterbury  for  judgment.  Eight  years  later  Bethlem  seems 
once  more  to  have  felt  the  heavy  hand  of  Edward  HI.  At 
least  this  is  how  I  interpret  a  mysterious  entry  in  our  muni- 
ment book  which  appears  to  summarize  an  ancient  document 
once  in  the  keeping  of  Bethlem  or  Bridewell.  According  to 
this  entry  Edward  HI  issued  a  writ  of  certiorari  against  the 
hospital  in  the  forty-eighth  year  of  his  reign  (?>.,  in  1375), 
when  the  "  vicar  certified "  that  the  hospital  was  of  the 
foundation  of  the  city  of  London,  that   it  was  worth  £/^  a 


/•■■ 


'■■-  fs^^mo 


"■'^J 


-/ 


"  ^ 


'"•X 


«^-2:te*~-^v-i,   *'^' 


■^^:5- 


'tS^"«»"'--i — TP^^^jrr 


„  V— '*:.^'"^  V 


■<?^ 


s    ,    ^, 


/I 

'5^ 


•-A 


THE  KING  55 

year,  and  that  it  paid  thirteen  and  fourpence  to  the  bishop  of 
Bethlehem  as  well  as  forty  shillings  to  the  city  chamberlain. 
To  my  mind  the  word  "  vicar "  suggests  a  representative  of 
the  king  placed  in  charge  of  an  alien  priory  during  an 
inquisition.  In  any  case,  however,  such  seizures  must  have 
taken  place  in  the  course  of  the  protracted  controversy 
between  the  king  and  the  city  over  the  question  of  patronage. 
It  may  be  desirable  at  this  turn  in  the  road  to  touch  lightly 
on  the  varying  fortunes  which  attended  the  parties  in  the 
dispute.  Various  allusions  in  mediaeval  and  later  documents 
may,  indeed,  be  said  to  prove  that  the  king  appointed  to  the 
mastership  of  the  hospital  now  and  again  between  1247  and 
1346.  But,  at  any  rate,  in  1350  on  the  death  of  Brother 
John  Matthew  de  Norton,  with  whom  the  mayor  and 
corporation  had  made  a  solemn  agreement  in  1346,  the  city 
at  once  "took  the  hospital  into  their  own  hands,"  dealt  with  a 
lease  of  the  convent  property,  and,  presumably,  elected  the 
new  master.  We  cannot  say  for  certain  whether  William 
Tytte  was  elected  on  that  occasion,  but  at  any  rate  he  is 
mentioned  some  eleven  years  later  as  the  brother  under 
whose  auspices  a  confraternity  of  drapers  met  annually  on 
the  Feast  of  the  Purification  (2nd  February)  in  the  chapel  of 
the  hospice.  He  appears  to  have  held  office — with  the 
respect  of  all  lovers  of  charity  and  discipline — until  the 
spring  of  the  year  1 38 1,  when  on  21st  April  the  mayor 
(Walworth)  and  citizens  found  it  necessary  to  elect  in  his 
place  one  John  Gardyner,  described  as  the  chaplain  of  the 
priory.  The  election  of  Gardyner,  "  for  the  term  of  his  life," 
was  the  signal  for  Richard  II  to  nominate — as  his  opening 
in  the  game — one  "  William  Welles,  Esquire,"  for  the  same 
place.  Check  to  the  city !  The  mayor  and  citizens  were 
undoubtedly  within  their  legal  rights  (for  they  were  parties 
to  a  legal  covenant  with  #he  hospital)  in  refusing  to  admit 
Welles — which  they  did  without  further  parley.  Check  to 
the  king !  Accordingly  Welles  took  his  grievance  to  the 
House  of  Commons  in  a  petition  which  I  have  translated  out 
of  a  Norman-French  document  in  the  third  volume  of  the 
Rolls  of  Parliament. 


^^*^ 


.^t-,^$/  ym. 


^^ 


_y 


58     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

"  William  Welles,  Esquire,  maketh  supplication  to  his  very 
puissant  lord,  the  king,  and  to  the  wisdom  of  his  parliament. 
Whereas  the  king  gave  him  the  wardenship  of  the  hospital 
of  Bedelem  without  Bishopsgate,  London,  the  said  William  is 
kept  out  of  his  rights  by  the  men  of  the  city,  and  cannot  obtain 
admission  to  that  hospital,  notwithstanding  that  the  king  and 
all  his  progenitors  have  always  presented  to  the  said  hospital, 
and  that  all  the  wardens  have  been  knights  [chivalers], 
as  Monsieur  James  de  Audley.  Also,  Monsieur  John 
Beauchamp  sent  a  man  to  the  said  hospital  by  command- 
ment of  the  grandfather  (Edward  III)  of  the  present  king, 
and  Monsieur  John  D'Arcy  appointed  a  man,  on  the  part  of 
the  said  grandfather,  and  they  held  and  occupied  the  hospital 
all  their  lives  without  being  disturbed  by  anybody.  He, 
therefore,  makes  petition  that  the  right  of  patronage  be 
tried  by  law,  as  between  the  king  and  the  said  people  of 
the  city." 

Welles  was  dryly  advised  by  parliament  to  seek  a  remedy 
in  the  court  of  chancery.  Whether  he  did  appeal,  I  do  not 
know.  He  swims  out  of  our  ken  to  enjoy  a  charge  on  some 
civic  office,  thrown  to  him,  perhaps,  as  a  sop  by  the  mayor 
and  aldermen. 

Richard  H,  however,  had  no  intention  of  accepting  check- 
mate, and  his  next  move  was  to  advance  an  ecclesiastical 
piece,  Robert  of  Lincoln  (one  of  his  chaplains),  to  a  square 
already  occupied,  as  the  mayor  protested,  by  Gardyner. 
Thereupon,  I  am  inclined  to  think,  the  king  upset  the 
chess-board,  and  rose  up  from  the  game  the  winner — by 
the  divine  right  and  ultimate  sanction  of  force.  In  an 
acute  stage  of  the  controversy  the  bewildered  bursar  of 
^Bedelem  hesitated  about  paying  the  ground-rent  of  twenty 
shillings  to  the  city  chamberlain.  The  city  lost  no  time 
in  asserting  their  rights,  and  ordered  their  sergeant  to  dis- 
train on  the  tenements  of  the  hospital  for  rent  and  arrears. 
However,  the  king  had  carried  his  main  point,  and  it  was 
not  till  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII  that  a  mayor  sat  down 
again  to  play  with  a  king  for  the  possession  of  Bethlehem 
Hospital. 


THE  KING 


59 


In  addition  to  the  right  of  patronage  the  king  claimed  the 
right  of  quartering  friends  or  old  servants  on  religious 
houses,  and  I  am  inclined  to  see  the  hand  of  Richard  II  in  a 
grant  made  on  22nd  August,  1391,  to  a  royal  tradesman  and 
his  wife.  Robert  Baron  and  Avice,  his  wife,  are  granted  two 
brothers'  corrodies,  or  allowances  for  maintenance.  They 
stipulate  that  they  are  to  do  no  menial  work,  and  to  receive 
food  as  good  and  well  cooked  as  the  brothers  and  sisters. 
On  their  part  they  agree  to  be  present  at  prayers,  and  to 
procure  their  friends  and  kinsfolk  to  help  the  priory,  and  to 
relieve  its  sick  and  poor.      Two  months  later  (16th  October, 


A   GAME   OF  CHESS. 


1 391)  they  were  granted  leave  to  build  on  a  vacant  plot  of 
land  within  the  liberty  of  Bedelem.  They  were  also  per- 
mitted to  construct  a  palisading  to  keep  the  inquisitive  pigs 
of  St.  Anthony  out  of  their  gardens. 

In  this  same  year  of  1391  the  Skinners'  Company  was 
still  composed  of  two  confraternities.  One  met  for  worship 
at  St.  Mary's  Spittle  at  the  Shoreditch  end  of  Bishops- 
gate  Without,  and  their  banner,  I  take  it,  was  emblazoned 
with  the  Assumption  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  their 
patroness. 

But  the  confraternity  of  Corpus  Christi  would  more  appro- 


6o     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

priately  be  associated  with  St.  Mary,  Bedelem,  where  it 
"had  a  Hght  burning" — perhaps  to  the  close  of  this  year. 
Bethlehem  signifies  the  house  of  bread,  and  up  to  the 
Reformation  our  coat-of-arms  carried — instead  of  a  chalice 
and  a  skull — a  chalice  with  a  Host  issuing  from  it.  These 
emblems  of  Corpus  Christi  (the  Body  of  Christ)  appear 
on  some  of  the  illuminated  manuscripts  of  the  Skinners' 
Company,  and  I  have  asked  my  friend,  the  artist,  to  insert 
them  on  the  banner  borne  on  Corpus  Christi  Day  in  1391 
into  Bedelem  church. 

On  this  Thursday  after  Trinity  Sunday  there  are  fresh 
flowers  on  all  the  altars ;  every  house  in  Bishopsgate 
Without  and  within  the  precincts  of  the  hospital  is  gay  with 
hangings  of  every  hue ;  and  many  a  window  and  niche 
enshrines  a  Madonna  or  an  image  of  St.  Botolph.  Within 
the  church  of  the  "  Blessed  Marie  of  Bedelem  "  this  summer 
afternoon  the  brothers  and  sisters  of  the  guild  in  their 
brightest  liveries  and  hoods  are  marshalling  for  the  proces- 
sion. The  solemn  roll  of  the  rhythmic  antiphon  is  heard  for 
a  moment  under  the  vaulted  roof — 

"  Now,  my  tongue,  the  mystery  telling 
Of  the  glorious  Body  sing." 

And  then  the  procession  issues  out  of  the  porch.  First 
comes  the  thurifer  swinging  incense ;  then  between  two 
acolytes  the  bearer  of  the  cross.  Behind  a  crimson 
banner,  on  which  is  painted  a  chalice  with  the  Host 
issuing  from  it,  march  the  clergy  two  and  two  in  alb  and 
cope  and  cassock,  each  with  a  lighted  taper  "  richly 
decorated  "  in  his  hands. 

For  a  space,  as  they  wend  their  way  around  the  quadrangle, 
priest  and  alderman,  sister  and  citizen  pause  outside  a  long 
low  gallery  in  front  of  a  group  of  the  "  possessed,"  some  of 
whom  are  heavily  manacled.  They  kneel  instinctively,  or 
are  forced  on  their  knees,  as  the  tabernacle  of  the  most  Holy 
Sacrament  under  its  rich  canopy  is  held  up  before  wild  or 
languid  eyes.     Then   in   the  solemn  hush  which  has  stilled 


^'A 


<^f-: 


^" 


Such  a  banner  would  have  been  carried  on  Corpus  Chrisli  Day  by  the  Skinners, 
who  worshipped  at  Bethk-hem  Hospital  m  i3(ji. 

(Drawn  by  F.  H.) 


To  face  p.  60. 


THE  KING  6i 

hysterical  laughter  and  unclean  tongue,  the  stern  voice  of  the 
exorcist  is  heard,  as  he  traces  the  cross  with  the  monstrance  : 
— "  Unclean  spirits  of  evil,  I  adjure  you  by  the  Body  of  Him 
Who  hath  burst  the  gates  of  hell,  and  hath  taken  away  the 
chains  from  its  captives,  that  ye  cease  to  torment  these 
servants  of  Christ."  And  once  again  a  cry  for  help  rises  up 
to  heaven : — 


"O  Saving  Victim,  opening  wide 

The  gate  of  heaven  to  man  below, 
Our  foes  press  on  from  every  side, 

Thine  aid  supply.  Thy  strength  bestow.' 


And  so  through  Bishopsgate  and  along  the  streets  of 
London  to  the  Skinners'  Hall,  perhaps  in  Dowgate  Hill,  as 
old  Stow  once  watched  them. 

In  the  accounts  of  the  Skinners'  Company  there  are 
allusions  to  their  annual  Corpus  Christi  pageant,  and  one  of 
the  modern  frescoes  in  their  hall  depicts  the  pageant 
passing  through  Cheapside.  Let  us  therefore  take  our 
places  in  such  a  procession  later  in  the  same  summer's 
day  of  1 39 1. 

A  blare  of  trumpets  and  the  clash  of  cymbals,  and  we  are 
on  our  way  to  Skinners'  Well,  near  Clerkenwell,  to  witness  a 
miracle  play  performed  by  the  Parish  Clerks'  Company. 
The  "giant"  (St.  Christopher  carrying  the  infant  Jesus)  is  a 
very  terrible  personage  with  his  mask  and  club,  but  the 
garlanded  children,  dancing  along  to  the  music  of 
mandolines,  make  a  sweet  and  pretty  picture.  Then 
follows  an  unwieldy  "pageant"  (a  platform  on  wheels) 
dragged  along  by  the  apprentices  of  the  craft.  It  repre- 
sents Herod  in  Saracen  mail  raving  and  raging  against 
the  Holy  Family,  the  stable  of  Bethlehem  being  a  tumble- 
down shed,  very  much  in  want  of  repair. 

In  a  play  which  began  with  the  creation  and  ended  with 
the  day  of  doom,  there  was  fare  suited  to  all  tastes  and 
appetites.  Even  that  terror  of  the  thirsty  patients,  the  wife 
of  Peter  the   porter,  might  have  wept  at  the  tender  lullaby 


62     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 


A  MIRACLE  OR  MYSTERY  PLAY. 
{After  a  picture  by  C.  0.  Skilbeck.) 


crooned  by  the  mothers  of  "  Bedelem  "  before  the  massacre 
of  the  innocents  : — 


"O  sisters  too,  how  may  we  do, 
For  to  preserve  this  day 
This  tiny  thing,  for  whom    we  sing, 
By-by,  lully,  lullay?" 


THE  KING  63 

But  in  these  mystery  plays  the  humorous  and  the  gro- 
tesque intruded  into  the  company  of  the  solemn  and  sublime, 
and  nobody  was  so  fastidious  as  to  be  shocked  or  to  see 
anything  incongruous.  Noah's  wife  refuses  to  enter  the  ark, 
and  scornfully  advises  her  husband  to  sail  in  search  of 
another  woman  ;  the  shepherds  only  cease  tossing  a  sheep- 
stealer  in  a  blanket  to  allow  the  impatient  angels  to  raise 
their  Gloria  in  excelsis.  Solomon  consoles  himself,  when 
nagged  at  by  his  wives,  with  a  pot  of  beer,  frequently 
replenished. 

Patients,  servants,  and  tenants  from  the  hospital — all 
were  there — and  these  were  the  episodes  they  enjoyed  late 
into  the  night.  Bonfires  were  blazing,  and  the  citizens  were 
feasting  with  their  neighbours,  in  all  the  streets,  as  they 
went  home. 

Verily  Corpus  Christi  was  the  day  of  days  in  Bethlehem 
Hospital  (the  house  of  the  heavenly  bread),  at  least  till  1392, 
after  which  a  united  confraternity  of  Skinners  appears  to 
have  met  elsewhere. 

In  the  future  may  we  find  the  Skinners'  Company  as 
good  friends  to  us  as  in  the  past ! 


CHAPTER  VIII 

-TRAFALGAR  SQUARE" 

/  One  of  the  masters  of  the  Bishopsgate  house — we  may  call 
him  our  first  medical  superintendent — was  a  doctor  of 
medicine;  this  was  John  Arundell,  1457.  And,  as  I  am 
writing  the  history  of  an  ancient  hospital,  I  shall  grant 
myself  a  licence  to  gossip  now  and  again  about  the 
physicians  and  surgeons  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Perhaps  also 
it  is  salutary  for  the  doctors  of  to-day — I  know  there  is  a 
little  spice  of  malice  in  the  remark — to  reflect  that  their 
predecessors  were  just  as  superstitious,  selfish  and  ridiculous 
as  their  contemporaries.  The  works  of  John  of  Gaddesden 
and  John  of  Arderne  are  still  in  our  libraries,  and  here  and 
elsewhere  my  literary  illustrations  are  drawn  from  their 
treatises  on  medicine  and  medical  etiquette. 

John  of  Gaddesden  was  the  court  physician  of  Edward  II 

(c.  1320)  who  wrapped  small-pox  cases  in  red  to  prevent  any 

marks  of  it  from  remaining.     He  prescribed  pounded  beetles 

for  the  stone,  and  the  heads  of  seven   fat  bats  for  diseases  of 

the  spleen  ;  he  had  a  magic  necklace  for  the  epilepsy,  and  he 

ordered  brandy — surely  an  efficacious  remedy — for  palsy  of 

the  tongue.     He  was  what  we  should  call  a  "  ladies'  doctor  "  ; 

he  had  many  ways  of  ingratiating  himself  with  them — the 

secret  of  a  new  perfume  and  hair  wash,  or  a  recipe  for  a  new 

dish  from  the  kitchen.     He  is  supposed  to  be  the  original  of 

I   Chaucer's  physician,  who  "  lov'd  gold  in  special  " ;  he  made 

''   large    sums    of    money    by   selling   costly    prescriptions   to 

J  the  rich. 

John    Arderne,  the  famous  surgeon,    must   have   been  in 

64 


^'  TRAFALGAR   SQUARE''  65 

London  during  the  year  1377,  with  which  this  chapter  deals. 
He  also  had  his  art  of  extracting  gold  from  the  richer  veins 
of  quartz.  He  made  it  a  habit  to  inform  a  patient  that  his 
cure  for  fistula  would  take  double  the  time  he  himself  antici- 
pated. When  the  patient  became  convalescent  before 
his  time,  and  poured  out  his  gratitude  to  the  author  of  so 
speedy  a  recovery,  the  great  surgeon  gravely  insisted  that  it 
was  largely  due  to  the  patient's  own  courage  or  constitution. 
Such  delicate  flattering  often  won  him  a  fee  of  £40,  a  set  of 
robes,  and  a  small  annuity,  for  a  single  operation.  Presum- 
ably both  of  the  Johns  were  priests  ;  Arderne  measured  all 
his  processes  of  compounding  by  the  time  taken  in  saying 
so   many  psalms  or  paternosters. 

The  herbalist  outside  St.  Botolph's  Church  ceased  to  vend 
"  nature's  priceless  remedies,"  for  his  customers  had  rushed 
off  to  the  gate  to  see  what  the  shouting  meant. 

A  clanking  of  chains,  and  the  swish  of  a  whip,  volleys  of 
virulent  abuse  and  appalling  blasphemy,  peals  of  ribald 
laughter  from  a  roystering  mob,  and  the  threats  of  the  spear- 
men to  the  mud-slingers — such  perhaps  may  have  been  the 
scene  when  the  patients  from  the  Stone  House,  Charing  Cross, 
passed  into  an  institution  for  ever  associated  with  the  keeping 
and  healing  of  the  diseased  in  brain  or  nerve. 

I  should  like  to  think  that  among  the  few  who  felt  pity  or 
indignation  at  the  sight  was  William  Langland,  the  author  of 
the  "  Vision  concerning  Piers  the  Plowman."  In  this  year  of 
1377  "Long  Wille"  was  in  Cornhill,  singing  funeral  masses, 
copying  out  legal  documents,  and  revising  his  immortal  cantos. 
Dreamer,  preacher,  and  satirist:  Bunyan,  Wycliffe,  and  Dante. 
Wandering  half-starved  in  his  "  shabby,  russet  robe "  along 
the  country  roads  with  Toms  of  Bedlam  and  artful  beggars  ; 
on  his  way  to  Shoreditch  with  his  "  wyfi^  Kytte  "  and  little 
"  Kalotte,"  an  anxious,  hungry  group  by  Bethlehem  Cross. 
And  sometimes  his  "  reason  waxed  and  waned  till  he  was  a 
fool,"  and  in  these  moody  fits  of  mental  aberration  he  would 
imprudently  refuse  to  doff  his  cap  to  the  black  velvet  and 
silver  pendant  of  great  ecclesiastics.  No  wonder  his  wife 
sometimes  "  wished  he  were  in  heaven." 

6 


"> 


66      THE    STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

How  tenderly,  if  too  fancifully,  he  has  written  of  the 
"  lunatic  lollers  "   (wandering  lunatics)  of  his  day. 

"  They  care  not  for  cold,  and  they  reck  not  of  heat ;  they 
carry  no  money,  nor  even  bags  to  beg  with ;  and  they  salute 
no  man  by  the  wa}/,  reverencing  not  even  a  mayor  more  than 
another.  They  are  all  more  or  less  mad  according  to  the  age 
of  the  moon.  But  surely  they  walk  the  roads  in  the  spirit 
and  guise  of  the  apostles  and  disciples  of  Christ.  Does  not 
the  Holy  Book  teach  us  that  we  ought  to  receive  into  our 
houses  the  poor  and  the  wanderer  ?  Ye  rich  are  ready  to 
entertain  fools  and  minstrels,  and  to  put  up  with  all  they  say. 
Much  more  should  ye  welcome  and  help  lunatic  lollers,  who 
are  God's  minstrels  and  merry-mouthed  jesters.  Under  His 
secret  seal  their  sins  are  covered." 

Even  so  in  Mohammedan  lands  mad  folks  are  regarded 
as   inspired,  or  under  the  special  protection  of  Allah. 

There  is  definite  proof — furnished  by  the  proceedings  of 
the  visitation  ordered  by  Henry  IV — that  the  hospital 
possessed  a"  house  at  Charing  Cross"  before  1403.  It  is  on 
record  that  this  house  contributed  twenty  shillings  to  its 
annual  revenues,  but,  according  to  Peter  the  porter,  the 
master  had  "  alienated  "  it.  In  this  instance  I  understand  by 
the  expression  that  he  had  farmed  it  out  on  a  long  lease  for  a 
sum  of  ready  money  and  a  small  ground-rent :  this  farming- 
out  system  led  to  great  abuses  in  our  mediaeval  history. 
According  to  a  document  quoted  below  such  a  house  with 
gardens  and  grounds  was  described  in  an  "ancient  lease 
made  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VII  "  as  the  "Stone  House." 
In  some  leases  granted  between  1536  and  1545  it  emerges — 
along  with  a  Bishopsgate  house  of  ours  which  I  have  called 
"  Staple  Hall  " — as  the  "  Stone  House  with  its  appurtenances 
recently  converted  into  three  tenements  with  their  appur- 
tenances." It  follows  from  the  terms  of  these  leases  and  of 
subsequent  documents  that  to-day  Trafalgar  Square  approxi- 
mately covers  the  site  of  the  "  Stone  House  and  its  appur- 
tenances." Finally  this  ancient  and  interesting  estate  of  the 
hospital,  somewhat  shorn  of  its  fleece  (it  is  true)  by  the 
malice  of  tenants  and  the    carelessness  of  its  trustees,  was 


"  TRAFALGAR    SQUARE"  67 

exchanged  in  1830  with  the  crown  for  a  valuable  estate  in 
Piccadilly. 

There  is  strong  presumption  that  this  house  had  been  a 
house  for  insane  people  before  1403,  and  that  it  was  the 
asylum  from  which  certain  insane  patients  were  transferred 
to  Bethlehem  Hospital — as  its  first  insane  patients — by 
the  order  of  one  of  the  kings  of  England,  not  positively 
identified. 

In  support  of  the  second  part  of  my  argument  let  me 
summon  John  Stow,  the  chronicler,  from  his  tailor's  board. 
In  the  second  edition  of  his  book — published  in  1603 — he 
gives  a  corrected  account  of  the  origin  and  earlier  use  of  the 
ancient  Stone  House  : — 

"  And  so  on  to  a  lane  that  turneth  to  the  parish  church  of 
St.  Martin  in  the  Fields.  Then  [i.e.,  at  the  corner  of  the  lane 
and  the  highroad]  had  ye  an  house  wherein  sometime  were 
distraught  and  lunatike  people,  of  what  antiquity  founded,  or 
by  whom,  I  have  not  read,  neither  of  the  suppression,  but  it 
was  said  that  sometime  a  king  of  England  not  liking  such  a 
kind  of  people  to  remain  so  near  his  palace,  caused  them  to 
be  removed  further  off  to  Bethlem  without  Bishopsgate,  and 
to  that  hospital  the  said  house  by  Charing  Cross  doth  yet 
remain." 

A  house  of  stone,  where  other  houses  were  built  of  oak 
and  rubble,  would — in  such  a  neighbourhood — have  been  the 
home  of  a  religious  community.  The  cross  erected  by 
Edward  I  to  the  memory  of  Queen  Eleanor  was  but  a  few 
yards  west  of  it.  The  Stone  House,  therefore,  may  have 
been  originally  founded  by  the  king  as  a  chantry  chapel, 
where  masses  might  be  said  for  his  dear,  dead  wife.  The 
good  brothers  of  the  convent  may  have  chosen  to  devote 
themselves  to  the  care  of  the  insane,  in  the  fields  of  St. 
Martin's,  because  the  downs  of  Charing  Cross  were  com- 
paratively remote  and  unoccupied  by  houses.  Such  con- 
siderations, at  any  rate,  seem  to  have  pointed  out  the  isolation 
of  the  neighbourhood  as  especially  suitable  for  the  leper- 
houses,  which  then  stood  on  the  sites  covered  to-day  by  St. 
James's  Palace  and  the  church  of  St.  Giles,  Holborn. 


6S     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

The  report  of  the  commissioners  in  1632  confirms  the 
story  told  by  Stow :  "  There  be  also  four  other  houses 
situated  near  Charing  Cross  in  the  parish  of  St.  Martin's  in 
the  Fields,  which  have  likewise  time  out  of  mind  paid  a  small 
rent  of  £'^  per  annum  to  the  hospital,  but  when,  or  by  whom, 
given  we  find  no  record.  Only  we  find  by  an  ancient  lease 
made  in  the  reign  of  Henry  VII  that  in  the  place  where 
these  houses  now  stand  was  anciently  an  old  house  with 
gardens  and  grounds  thereunto  belonging  called  the  Stone 
House,  which  Stone  House  we  do  likewise  find,  in  a  bill  pre- 
ferred to  the  Exchequer  in  December  of  9  James  I  [161 2]  by 
the  mayor,  commonalty  and  citizens  of  London  against  one 
Agnes  Garland,  that  it  was  sometimes  employed  for  the 
harbouring  of  mad  and  distracted  persons,  before  such  time 
as  they  were  removed  to  the  present  hospital  of  Bethlehem, 
without  Bishopsgate." 

We  have  now  to  inquire  whether  there  is  any  evidence 
bearing  on  the  date  of  the  transfer  of  the  inmates  of  the  Stone 
House  to  Bethlehem  Hospital.  The  imaginary  scenes,  into 
which  I  have  introduced  contemporary  characters,  are 
intended  to  harmonize  with  my  conjecture  that  the  king^ 
who  ordered  the  transfer  of  the  mad  folk,  was  Edward  III  or 
Richard  II,  and  that  the  date  of  the  transfer  was  1377,  or 
thereabouts. 

I  am  quite  willing  to  rest  my  case  on  the  definite  assertion 
made  by  those  who  searched  the  muniment  room  at  Bridewell 
iii  1632  : — 

"  When  the  hospital  was  first  employed  to  the  use  of  dis- 
tracted persons  appeareth  not.  The  first  mention  we  find 
of  it  to  be  employed  so  was  in  the  beginning  of  the  reign  of 
Richard  II  "  (c.  1377). 

Bethlehem  Hospital  appears  to  have  been  seized  as  an 
alien  priory  once  or  twice  in  the  last  ten  years  of  the  reign  of 
Edward  III,  the  predecessor  of  Richard  II.  Such  a  demon- 
stration against  a  French  house  may  well  have  inspired 
Edward  III,  or  Richard  II,  with  a  scheme  for  increasing  its 
usefulness,  while  at  the  same  time  he  ministered  to  his  own 
convenience. 


''TRAFALGAR   SQUARE''  6g 

Moreover  the  following  chapter  furnishes  some  evidence, 
which  makes  for  the  date  assigned  in  the  quotation.  For  it 
appears  from  a  study  of  this  chapter  that  in  1403  the  priory 
had  in  its  keeping  six  men  who  had  lost  their  reason  ("sex 
viri  mente  capti  "),  and  that  an  inventory  of  an  earlier  date 
(1398)  included  "four  pair  of  manacles,  eleven  chains  of  iron, 
six  locks  and  keys,  and  two  pair  of  stocks  " — obviously  the 
outfit  of  an  asylum.  Lastly,  we  might  also  infer  from  the 
evidence  of  one  of  the  witnesses  that  the  work  of  the  hospital 
among  the  poor  and  sick  in  1403  was  of  the  same  character 
twenty-four  years  previously,  say  in  1379,  which  is  not  far 
off  1377. 

However,  with  the  help  of  worthy  old  Stow,  I  can  accumu- 
late some  more  testimony  in  support  of  a  date  which  makes 
Bethlem  the  oldest  asylum  in  the  world  with  a  continuous 
history. 

Perchance  he  is  ambling  over  the  ground  which  he  pro- 
poses to  describe  with  some  disciple  as  poor  as  himself 
He  has  passed  the  houses  in  which  our  tenants — Chris- 
tiana Golightly  and  Thomas  Wood — used  to  live,  and  now 
they  are  peeping  into  the  stables  of  her  grace,  Elizabeth  : — 

"  Then  [i.e.,  next  to  the  Stone  House]  is  the  mews  so  called 
of  the  king's  falcons  there  kept  by  the  king's  falconer,  which 
of  old  time  was  an  office  of  great  account,  as  appeareth  by  a 
record  of  Richard  H  in  the  first  year  of  his  reign  [1377,  when] 
Sir  Simon  Burley  was  made  master  of  the  king's  falcons." 
We  have  already  noted  that  there  is  official  authority  for 
accepting  the  year  1377  as  marking  the  beginning  of  our 
historic  ministry.  There  is  evidence  of  considerable  expen- 
diture in  the  matter  of  stone  and  timber  for  the  mews  in  the 
wardrobe  accounts  of  1375,  and  I  am  inclined  therefore  to 
suggest  that  Sir  Simon  Burley  wanted  the  Stone  House  for 
himself  or  for  one  of  his  officials,  and  that  he  found  the  noise 
made  by  the  raging  inmates  of  the  house  rather  disturbing  to 
his  dignity,  to  his  birds  or  falconers,  in  the  "palace  of  the  mews." 

Another  bone  which  may,  or  may  not,  have  some  meat 
on  it : — 

In   1369  Robert  Denton,  chaplain,  obtained  a  royal  licence 


70     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

to  found  a  hospital  in  honour  of  the  Virgin  Mary  in  the  parish 
of  All  Hallows  Barking,  near  the  Tower.  This  hospital  was 
intended  to  house  "  priests  and  others,  men  and  women,  who 


"AMENS  ACCEDIT. 

The  patient  is  brought  to  the  shrine  of  St.  Thomas  at  Canterbury  to  be  healed.     A  keeper 
urges  him  on  with  a  whip,  but  a  monk  helps  him  to  kneel  down  at  an  altar,  before  which 

stands  the  officiating  priest. 

{From  a  window  of  the  twelfth  century  in  Canterbury  Cathedral.) 


suddenly  fell  into  a  frenzy  and  lost  their  memories,  until 
such  time  as  they  should  recover."  Is  it  only  a  coincidence 
that  Denton  "  changed  his  mind  "  and  diverted  the  endow- 
ment to  a  chantry  ?    Was  it  intimated  to  him  that  Bethlehem 


''TRAFALGAR   SQUARE''  71 

Hospital  already  answered  such  a  purpose  as  he  had  originally 
designed  ? 

The  patients  transferred  from  the  Stone  House  to  the  con- 


"  SANUS   RECEDIT."  

The  merits  of  the  saint  have  healed  the  sufferer.  He  kneels— his  senses  restored— in  humble 
gratitude,  while  the  priest  gives  him  his  blessing.  The  keeper,  who  has  thrown  his  whips 
away,  holds  up  his  hands  in  astonishment :  the  monk  behind  the  patient  reverently  folds  his 

hands  in  prayer. 

{From  the  same  window  in  the  Trinity  Chapel  as  the  companion  picture.) 

vent  at  Bishopsgate  about  the  year  1377  would  be  suffering, 
for  the  most  part,  from  acute  mania,  and  their  treatment 
would  be  drastic.  Some  of  them,  however,  would  be  termed, 
in  the  scientific  language  of  the  modern  text-book,  cases  of 


72     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

hallucination,  whether  of  sight  or  hearing.  They  would  be 
diagnosed  as  examples  of  demoniac  possession  by  the  eccle- 
siastics in  charge,  and  a  service  of  exorcism  prescribed.  The 
monastic  annals  furnish  us  with  many  illustrations  of  these 
and  other  forms  of  insanity.  For  example,  you  may  read 
two  stories  of  acute  mania  in  the  "  Life  and  Miracles  of  St. 
Thomas  of  Canterbury,"  which  has  been  edited  by  Dr.  E.  A. 
Abbot,  or  you  may  see  the  scenes  described  on  the  painted 
glass  of  the  Trinity  chapel  of  Canterbury  cathedral.  I  have 
introduced  some  illustrations  taken  from  these  windows. 

"  About  the  same  time,"  so  writes  the  chronicler,  "  the  mad 
Henry  of  Fordwich  was  dragged  by  his  friends  to  the  tomb 
with  his  hands  tied  behind  him,  struggling  and  shouting,  and 
there  remained  all  day,  but  began  to  recover  as  the  sun  went 
down,  and  after  a  night  spent  in  the  church  returned  home, 
perfectly  well  in  his  mind." 

Matilda  of  Cologne  would  find  her  place  in  a  refractory 
ward  to-day.  Her  language  was  foul,  she  tore  her  clothes  to 
pieces,  and  struck  at  everyone  who  tried  to  remove  her.  She 
also  was  tightly  trussed,  and  thus  bound  she  raved  on  for  four 
or  five  hours,  but  by  degrees  she  came  to  herself,  when  she 
said  that  she  had  seen  in  a  dream  the  "  martyr  clothed  in 
pontifical  vestments  with  the  blood  streak  across  his  face." 

The  treatment  of  patients  in  the  Middle  Ages  was  not 
quite  as  absurd  or  inhuman  as  it  may  appear  at  first  sight. 
The  ducking  of  maniacs,  their  confinement  in  a  church  all 
night,  and  the  use  of  ligatures  and  whips  were  calculated  to 
exliaust  their  fury,  and  to  instil  into  them  that  sense  of  terror 
which  tames  a  wild  beast.  In  such  a  condition  of  mind  they 
were,  I  take  it,  more  sensitive  to  the  associations  of  a  miracle- 
working  shrine,  and  more  ready  to  profit  by  the  healing 
ministrations  of  time  and  nature. 


CHAPTER   IX 

PETER   IN  THE   PILLORY 

The  setting  of  my  story  is  laid  in  the  Middle  Ages  for  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years.  I  have  therefore  felt  justified  in 
spraying  the  air  with  something  that  may  give  the  reader  the 
sensation  of  breathing  the  atmosphere  of  the  place  and 
period.  Let  it  be  understood,  however,  that  in  manufac- 
turing the  magic  spray  I  have  thrown  into  the  still  only  those 
ingredients  which  flowered  in  the  soil  of  the  period.  My 
scenes  are  played  by  characters  from  contemporary  history 
and  poetry,  and  the  play  has  generally  some  bearing  on 
the  history  of  Bethlehem  Hospital. 

By  way  ofexample  let  me  summon  from  the  "  Canterbury 
Tales  "  a  character  upon  whom  the  hospital  has  to  rely  for 
a  large  part  of  its  working  revenue,  the  authorized  pardoner 
or  limitour.  A  wandering  friar  he  is,  who  has  a  licence  to 
beg  for  his  charity  within  certain  definite  limits,  such  as  a 
diocese  or  archdeaconry.  He  is  a  jolly  fellow,  with  "  merry 
twinkling  eyes,"  a  hail-fellow-well-met  kind  of  man  on  the 
best  of  terms  with  everybody — except  the  beggars,  lepers,  and 
"  false  hermits,"  who  are  his  rivals  on  the  road.  There  is  no 
better  beggar  than  he :  he  has  been  known  to  charm  out  of 
the  widow  her  ''  last  pair  of  shoes  "  ;  he  is  welcome  in  every 
kind  of  place  and  company.  For  the  faithful  he  has  his 
wallet  of  pardons  and  relics — the  irreverent  declare  that  some 
rays  from  the  star  of  Bethlehem  are  amongst  them.  In  the 
tavern  his  fiddle  and  his  ballads  make  him  free  of  all  that  he 
wants  in  the  way  of  bed  or  board.  His  hood  is  stuffed  with 
pretty  trinkets  for  the  farmer's  wife,  and  with  quack  medicines 

73 


74     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

for  her  husband  and  his  men.  He  is  "travelling"  for  a 
hospital  which  cares  for  the  "  possessed,"  and  his  reputation 
is  in  jeopardy  if  he  fails  to  anticipate  the  "  sorceress," 

"  That  uses  exorcisations, 
And  eke  these  fumigations." 

She  had  her  charms  against  the  devil  just  as  potent  (she 
insists)  as  those  of  the  friar  and  physician,  but  it  was  also  her 
practice  to  purge  the  system  of  its  black  bile  by  natural 
means.  Accordingly  the  "  possessed  "  is  held  over  pans  of 
smoking  brimstone  until  he  has  vomited  up  the  "  evil  spirit  " 
— or  the  bile.  There  are  allusions  to  these  fumigations  in 
Shakespeare  and  other  Jacobean  literature.  Even  as  late  as 
1688  Bunyan  witnessed  such  a  method  of  "  casting  out  the 
devil  "  ;  in  this  case  the  man  died  of  it,  or  after  it. 

One  way  or  another  the  friar  makes  a  good  profit  in  excess 
of  the  fixed  sum  which  he  is  bound  to  pay  over  annually  to 
the  hospital.  There  are  still  extant  in  the  Record  Office  and 
in  the  episcopal  registers  copies  of  these  licences  granted  by 
Henry  HI  and  Edward  HI,  by  the  archbishop  of  Canter- 
bury (1372),  and  by  the  bishops  of  Salisbury  (c.  1395)  and 
Chichester  (1399).  I  give  an  example  in  the  following  trans- 
lation : — 

"  Greeting,  grace,  and  blessing  from  Richard  [bishop  of 
Salisbury]  to  his  beloved  sons,  to  the  abbots,  to  the  proctors, 
to  the  rectors,  to  the  vicars,  to  the  chaplains,  and  to  all  other 
parish  priests  who  are  wont  to  celebrate  Divine  service  in  our 
diocese  and  in  its  towns.  Certain  men  will  come  to  you  or 
your  parishes  ;  they  are  the  rectors  or  proctors  of  the  house 
or  hospital  of  the  Blessed  Mary  of  Bethleme,  Bisshopesgate 
Without,  London,  to  ask  alms  of  Christ's  faithful  people,  and 
to  collect  contributions  for  the  support  of  themselves  and  of 
their  house,  or  hospital.  You  are  to  receive  them  with  all 
kindness  and  to  give  them  a  favourable  hearing  for  their 
peaceable  errand,  and  it  is  our  will  and  pleasure  that  their 
aims,  as  set  forth  in  their  own  and  our  official  letters,  should 
be   furthered,  and   that  no  impediment  should  be  placed  in 


PETER  IN  THE  PILLORY  75 

their  way,  and  also  that  whatever  is  collected  for  them  in  this 
diocese  should  be  handed  over  to  them,  with  or  without  some 
deduction.  Accordingly  we  hereby  grant  an  indulgence  of 
forty  days  to  all  who  collect,  bequeath,  or  in  any  way  appor- 
tion money  out  of  their  property  in  charitable  contributions 
towards  the  support  of  the  aforesaid  proctors  and  brothers, 
and  of  the  poor  and  sick  dwelling  in  the  aforesaid  hospital." 

The  "  limitour,"  "  qusestor,"  or  "  proctor "  who  received 
them  was  protected  from  arrest  as  a  rogue  by  the  king's 
bailiff,  and  was  permitted  access  to  the  parish  church  and 
its  congregations — much  to  the  annoyance  of  the  parish 
priest.  It  was  useless  for  him  to  refuse  absolution  or  to 
try  to  enforce  discipline  when  a  brother  of  Bethlehem,  who 
displayed  formidable  seals  and  alleged  papal  privileges, 
would  remove  an  excommunication  for  a  "ring  or  a 
spoon." 

These  collectors,  whose  payments  kept  up  the  fabric  of 
the  hospice,  and  largely  provided  for  the  maintenance  of  the 
poor  and  insane,  were  obliged  to  hand  in  the  amounts  due 
from  them  to  the  master  or  his  representative  at  Bishopsgate 
periodically. 

Between  1388  and  1403  Peter  Taverner,  the  janitor,  was  in 
fact  the  treasurer  of  the  hospital,  and  it  was  proved  before 
a  royal  commission  that  he  kept  in  his  own  pockets  all  that 
was  paid  over  to  him  for  its  benefit. 

The  master  was  a  royal  chaplain — a  pluralist  and  an 
absentee — and  he  had  assigned  to  Peter  in  legal  form  his 
office  for  life,  his  office  including  the  "  safe  keeping  of  the 
poor  and  sick  as  well  as  the  custody  of  the  alms."  I  propose 
to  put  this  fraudulent  treasurer  into  the  pillory,  and,  in 
mediaeval  fashion,  I  shall  hang  the  evidence  of  his  rascality 
around  his  neck. 

The  scandals  associated  with  the  name  of  Peter,  the  porter, 
had  been  notorious  for  years,  until  after  a  time  they  had 
grown  intolerable.  Possibly  in  answer  to  an  appeal  from  the 
city  in  1403,  Henry  IV  appointed  two  of  his  royal  chaplains 
to  make  an  inquisition  into  the  "  neglect  of  the  masters  or 
wardens,"  the  "  defects  in  the  books,  vestments,  and   other 


76     THE  STORY  OP  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

ornaments  of  the  chapel,  and  the  diminishing  of  Divine 
services,  hospitalities,  and  other  works  of  piety." 

The  commissioners  took  evidence  during  the  months  of 
March  and  May,  1403.  Two  of  the  sittings  were  held  in  the 
"  chapel  of  the  Blessed  Mary  of  Bethleem,"  and  a  third  in 
the  chapter-house  of  Westminster  Abbey. 

In  this  beautiful  hall  all  the  affairs  of  the  abbey  were  once 
transacted,  and  by  the  central  pillar  the  scourge  of  discipline 
fell  on  the  back  of  the  monk  ;  it  was  the  scene  of  the 
earliest  parliament  of  England,  but  it  was  degraded  during 
part  of  the  nineteenth  century  into  a  depository  for  boxes 
of  manuscripts. 

There  were  thirty-five  articles  of  indictment  laid  against 
Peter  by  the  master,  which  were  generally  corroborated — and 
readily — by  the  depositions  of  witnesses  numbering  eighteen. 
The  gist  of  the  charge  was  that  the  janitor  had  violated  the 
terms  of  his  contract,  and  had  committed  perjury,  having 
broken  the  oath  which  he  had  "  taken  with  his  hand  on  the 
Holy  Gospels  of  God  "  that  he  would  be  faithful  to  the  master 
and  also  to  the  hospital,  and  that  he  would  faithfully  guard  it 
and  the  sick  people  lying  therein  by  day  and  by  night  under 
pain  of  the  loss  of  his  place. 

In  support  of  this  charge  it  was  proved  that  he  had  seized 
for  his  own  use  alms,  legacies,  and  money  in  any  form ;  he 
had  injured  the  hospital  by  removing  goods  and  chattels 
from  it ;  he  had  admitted  improper  characters  into  it,  who 
injured  the  buildings  and  stole  everything  upon  which  they 
could  lay  hold  ;  he  had  brought  scandal  and  disgrace  upon 
the  house  by  his  gambling  and  immorality,  and  by  the 
behaviour  of  the  tramps  and  beggars  he  admitted  at  nights. 
As  for  the  poor  and  the  sick  in  niind  and  body — he  had  not 
gratuitously  distributed  amongst  them  (as  he  ought  to  have 
done)  the  food  sent  in  daily  by  so  many  charitable  citizens 
for  their  benefit ;  each  inmate  had  to  pay  Peter  for  what  had 
cost  him  nothing.  Money  was  dropped  into  the  boxes  which 
were  rattled  up  and  down  in  the  streets  of  the  city,  so  that 
the  poor  and  the  sick  might  have  wood  and  charcoal  in  the 
winter,   but   the   janitor  used    to   buy   in  a   store  of   fuel  in 


PETER   IN   THE   PILLORY 


77 


summer  at  wholesale  prices,  and  to  retail  it  to  the  inmates 
in  the  winter  at  extortionate  rates. 

Indeed,  so  far  from  the  insane  being  supported  out  of 
charitable  contributions,  they  or  their  friends  had  to  pay 
from  a  shilling  a  week  to  Peter  or  his  wife  for  maintenance 
— nothing  is  said  about  treatment. 


'%  ..,  it^;iL 


CHAPTER   HOUSE,   WESTMINSTER  ABBEY. 


At  every  turn  the  patients  ran  up  against  Peter  to  their 
hurt.  If  they  wanted  beer,  they  had  to  buy  it  at  the  porter's 
price  ;  for  they  dared  not  go  outside  for  it  "  on  account  of 
the  threats  of  the  wife  of  the  aforesaid  "—a  termagant  who 
deserved  the  scold's  bridle  or  the  ducking  stool !  If  the 
patients  wanted  sleep — and  the  sleep  of  mental  sufferers  is 


78     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

of  the  lightest  and  most  broken — it  was  "  impossible  for  them 
to  get  sleep  or  rest  by  reason  of  the  swearing  and  loud 
gossip  "  which  went  on  late  into  the  night  at  the  gate  of 
the  hospital  where  Peter's  wife  was  selling  beer. 

So  far  the  charges  made  against  Peter  Taverner  hinge  on 
the  duty  he  owed  in  view  of  his  oath  to  the  master  of  the 
hospital.  But  two  of  the  articles  of  the  prosecution  may  be 
noticed  here,  because  they  serve  to  emphasize  the  privileges 
of  a  royal  hospital,  which  was  often  exempted  from  the  juris- 


PETER,   THE   PORTER,    PILLAGES  THE   HOSPITAL. 

{Drawn  by  Charge-Attendant  A.  Cantte.) 


diction  of  the  mayor  or  diocesan.  The  master  was  indignant 
that  certain  wills  should  have  been  proved  in  the  presence  of 
the  commissioners  of  the  bishop  of  London  "contrary  to  the 
liberties  and  privileges  of  the  hospital  and  of  the  law  of  the 
realm."  And  he  urged  the  commissioners  to  revoke  probate 
and  to  grant  it  anew  on  behalf  of  the  king.  There  is  some 
reason  to  believe  that  the  privileged  precincts,  if  they  did  not 
confer  the  right  of  sanctuary,  allowed  special  facilities  for 
marriages  in  which  haste  or  privacy  was  desirable.  Dekker 
makes   "  Bethlehem    monastery "    the    scene    of    a   runaway 


PETER   IN   THE  PILLORY  79 

marriage,  and  there  were  grave  complaints  made  by  con- 
vocation in  1543  against  the  "ungodly  solemnization  of 
marriages  frequently  used  in  the  hospital  of  Bethlehem." 

Peter,  the  porter,  has  yet  to  suffer  another  hour  in  the 
pillory  and  another  interview  with  the  historian.  Possibly 
a  transcript  of  all  the  articles  stolen  may  whet  the  curiosity 
of  the  reader,  and  may  persuade  him  to  attend  the  final 
sitting  of  the  court  in  the  next  chapter. 

Peter  Taverner  was  charged  with  stealing — 33  coverlets 
(red  and  blue  worsted),  34  blankets,  25  sheets,  6  mattresses, 
5  brass  pans,  i  axe,  i  spade,  3  shovels,  i  pair  of  tongs,  8  platters, 
8  wooden  dishes,  2  trivets,  4  tubs,  2  keys  to  a  garden  gate, 
I  bier,  i  bucket,  i  barrow,  I  mortar,  3  tankards  [for  drawing 
water],  i  iron  skimmer,  i  pillow  of  serge,  i  table  cloth, 
I  towel, 

and 
2  pairs  of  stocks 

4  pairs  of  iron  manacles 

5  other  chains  of  iron 

6  chains  of  iron  with  6  locks 

These  chains  will  clank  and  clank  and  clank  through  the 
history  of  Bethlehem  Hospital  for  another  four  hundred 
years. 


CHAPTER  X 

AN  APPRECIATION  OF  PETER 

Some  eighteen  witnesses  were  called  in  support  of  the 
charges  launched  against  Peter  Taverner.  They  included 
the  bursar,  a  chaplain,  the  master's  sister,  a  Devonshire 
rector,  some  of  the  poor  of  the  hospice,  and  a  few  patients 
who  had  been  treated  for  paralysis  or  insanity.  Some  of  the 
witnesses  had  been  there  two  or  three  years,  and  the  memory 
of  one  carried  him  back  "  twenty-four  years  or  thereabouts," 
that  is  to  1379.  "  In  those  days,"  he  snapped  out  with  par- 
donable sarcasm,  "  we  were  not  accustomed  to  be  governed 
by  the  porter,  but  we  had  a  master,  Brother  Tytte,  who  so 
supervised  everything  that  the  poor  should  be  properly  and 
suitably  maintained." 

Brother  Tytte,  however,  I  may  remark  parenthetically, 
seems  to  have  had  a  Peter  of  his  own,  for  I  note  that  in  1380 
one  "  Gervase  Worthy  was  outlawed  for  failing  to  render  his 
account  as  received  to  William  Tytte." 

Another  witness  was  a  woman  who  had  been  put  into  the 
house  a  year  and  a  half  before  by  her  neighbours  to  "  recover 
her  reason."  Her  parents  and  other  people  had  made  a  col- 
lection on  her  behalf,  but  Peter  and  his  wife  took  charge  of 
the  collection,  and  "  still  had  goods  belonging  to  her  to  the 
value  of  five  shillings." 

Taverner  is  already  a  dethroned  god  who  no  longer  inspires 
fear  and  silence,  and  the  witnesses  do  not  hesitate  to  speak 
their  minds  freely  and  fully  ;  past  privations  and  injuries  rise 
to  the  surface  as  the  waters  are  dragged. 

With  materials  so  ample  and  so  significant  it  will  not  be 

difficult  to  indite  an  appreciation  of  Peter,  the  porter. 

80 


AN  APPRECIATION  OF  PETER  8i 

In  the  first  place  Peter  was  a  fisherman  who  was  ever 
ready  to  drop  his  net  into  all  waters  for  a  catch,  while  the 
meshes  were  so  fine  as  to  prevent  the  escape  of  even  the 
smallest  fish.  His  depredations  absorbed  all  the  items  of  a 
long  inventory,  and  all  the  alms  received  from  the  "  whole 
realm  of  England,"  but  he  did  not  disdain  even  the  contents 
of  the  "  poor  boxes  at  the  gate,  in  the  chapels,  and  in  the 
infirmary."  Charitable  people  often  came  to  visit  the  insane 
in  the  infirmary  with  little  comforts  or  with  some  charms 
against  frenzy  and  melancholy.  Sometimes  they  wished  to 
slip  a  little  gift  into  the  "  box  attached  to  the  post."  When 
that  happened  Peter  deferentially  insinuated  that  it  might  be 
wiser  to  hand  the  silver  penny  over  to  him  for  the  garnishing 
of  the  altar  at  the  Feast  of  the  Purification,  when  the  con- 
fraternity of  the  drapers  would  be  present  in  their  new 
liveries.  The  master  (he  purred)  was  a  greedy  fellow,  who 
took  all  the  rents  of  the  convent  property — some  eight 
guineas  a  year  (say  £\6o),  and  there  were  missing  from  the 
church  a  "  silver  censer  and  two  silver  phials  "  ;  they  were 

supposed  to  be  still  in  the  "  keeping  of  the  master,"  but . 

The  good  simple  people  thanked  Mr.  Taverner  for  the  hint, 
and  "  handed  over  their  offerings  "  to  him,  as  the  sister  of  the 
master  acidly  deposed. 

No  mention  is  made  of  them  at  the  inquisition,  but  there 
were  two  bequests  of  historic  interest,  which  might  have 
assisted  Peter  to  "  play  backgammon  and  to  gamble  with 
dice"  by  night  and  by  day,  and  might  have  decked  out 
a  certain  "  Alice,  the  wife  of  John  Sampson,"  whom  he 
visited  publicly  and  privately — not  for  the  best  of  motives. 

In  1383  the  famous  Walworth  left  "twenty  shillings  to 
every  hospital  in  London,"  so  that  the  inmates  might  pray 
for  his  soul.  And  in  1389  Ralph,  Lord  Basset  of  Drayton, 
left  ;^ioo  to  found  two  chantries  in  the  church  of  the  hospital. 
Precedent  hardly  justifies  us  in  hoping  too  much  of  the 
itching  fingers  which  held  the  bag. 

At  any  rate,  Peter  had  a  knack  of  snapping  up  all  legacies, 
and,  when  a  man  died  intestate,  he  administered  the  estate  for 
his  own  benefit  without  bothering  about  probate  at  all. 


82     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

It  is  significant  that  the  surname  of  the  porter  was 
Taverner.  Presumably  such  was  his  original  occupation,  in 
which  his  wife  assisted  him.  At  Bethlem  he  had  a  certain 
"  low  chamber  on  the  west  side  of  the  entrance,  tosfether 
with  a  parlour  and  buttery,"  and  here  in  spite  of  official 
admonitions  he  and  his  wife  sold  ale  "  late  into  the  night," 
and  to  the  "  poorest  sort  of  people." 

As  early  as  1480  there  appears  to  have  been  a  White  Hart 
inn,  which  yet  survives,  as  a  tavern,  under  the  disguise  of 
"  121,  Bishopsgate,"  next  to  the  church  of  St.  Botolph,  and  the 
sign  naturally  carries  the  history  of  it  back  to  the  reign  of 
Richard  II,  whose  armorial  cognizance  was  a  white  hart. 
This  house,  which  stood  just  within  or  just  without  the 
precincts,  may  originally  have  been  the  guest-house  of  the 
monastery.  In  that  case  it  would  be  a  hall  with  bedrooms 
opening  out  of  it  to  left  and  right.  Peter  appears  to  have 
filled  this  guest-house  (and  possibly  the  chapel  as  well)  with 
verminous  tramps  and  disorderly  labourers,  and  much  of 
the  beer  which  Peter  Taverner  sold  went  to  quench  their 
thirst. 

The  biography  of  Peter  would  not  be  complete  without 
some  tribute  to  the  generous  and  philanthropic  elements  in 
his  versatile  character.  No  admirer  of  the  man  or  of  his  wife 
can  blink  the  fact  that  they  "  selected  the  larger  and  better 
portion "  for  themselves  of  the  "  bread,  ale,  meat,  fish, 
candles,  and  divers  other  things,"  sent  in  daily  by  mayor, 
aldermen,  and  other  charitable  citizens.  But  in  justice  to  the 
worthy  pair  we  must,  before  we  strike,  listen  to  another  count 
of  the  indictment : — "  The  said  Peter  has  divers  children  in 
his  house  whom  he  boards  and  lodges  at  the  expense  of  the 
hospital."  Have  we  not  here  a  suggestion  of  philanthropy — 
an  "  orphanage  supported  by  voluntary  contributions " : 
"  Honorary  Director,    the   keeper   of  Bethlehem   Hospital  "  ? 

However  the  master  is  unreasonable  and  refuses  to  recog- 
nize any  redeeming  points  in  the  character  of  his  deputy : — 
"  And  when  poor  or  sick  people  came  to  the  hospital  to 
obtain  rest  as  they  are  accustomed  to  do,  they  are  shut  out 
by  the  presence  of  these  children,  and  this  seems  to  be  an 


AN  APPRECIATION  OF  PETER  83 

extraordinary  state  of  affairs,  unless  such  children  should  be 
sick,  or  sent  there  from  charitable  motives." 

We  must  all  sympathize  with'  the  bewilderment  of  the 
master  who  had  never  personally  taken  the  trouble  to  see 
that  the  house  was  administered,  "  according  to  its  constitu- 
tion, for  the  entertainment  of  the  poor  and  the  sick."  Frankly 
speaking,  this  "  home "  or  "  orphanage  "  invites  suspicion. 
Was  it  a  sort  of  Dotheboys  Hall  under  the  threatening  finger 
of  a  mediaeval  Mrs.  Squeers  ?  Or  was  it  a  baby  farm 
"  under  the  patronage  and  supervision  of  the  clergy  "  ?  As 
a  man  of  business  even  the  "  children's  friend  "  might  have 
been  tempted  to  charge  the  putative  fathers  so  much  a  week, 
while  he  maintained  these  "  unwanted  children "  at  the 
expense — not  of  himself,  but  of  the   hospital. 

The  commissioners  of  course  brought  in  a  verdict  of  guilty, 
and  the  keeper  was  ordered  to  replace  all  that  was  missing 
or  stolen  within  three  days,  or  to  consider  himself  fined  £100. 
Even  such  a  sum,  equivalent  perhaps  to  £2<C)00  in  the  money 
of  to-day,  was  not  a  very  heavy  fine  for  the  rogue,  since  he 
had  robbed  the  institution  of  at  least  ^300  (;^6,ooo). 

It  does  not  appear  that  ours  was  a  repentant  Peter,  for  on 
9th  May,  1403,  as  he  had  not  made  restitution  of  the  stolen 
goods,  sentence  was  passed  upon  him  in  the  following 
terms  : — 

"  Forasmuch  as  we  have  found  that  Peter  Taverner  has 
been  guilty  of  taking  away  the  goods  of  the  hospital,  of 
receiving  and  detaining  divers  sums  of  money  belonging 
to  the  said  poor  people,  and  of  the  dishonest  administrations 
of  their  goods  :  and  forasmuch  as  we  find  that  the  poor  have 
been  defrauded  for  many  years  of  the  alms  collected  for  them 
by  the  faithful  in  Christ,  we,  therefore,  having  God  alone 
before  our  eyes,  do  by  the  authority  of  the  king  committed 
to  us  in  this  case  deprive  Peter  of  the  office  of  janitor,  and 
from  the  custody  of  the  alms  of  the  poor  people,  and  we 
do  remove  the  selfsame  man  for  ever." 

Probably  Peter  did  remove  himself;  London  would  have 
been  too  hot  to  hold  him.  But  doubtless  outside  the  eates 
of  another  city  there  was  a  tavern  which  was  also  a  common 


84     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

lodging  house,  the  "  property  of  a  taverner  in  London."  It 
had  been  furnished  (so  the  neighbours  noticed)  by  degrees, 
but  there  peradventure  you  might  have  found  all  that  was 
missing  from  the  inventory  I  have  quoted.  Here  till  even- 
song rang  the  "  hermit  roasted  his  feet  at  the  hot  coals," 
and  the  hangman  told  his  gruesome  tales  to  the  cut-purses 
and  the  "bald-headed  drawers  of  teeth."  Clarice  and  other 
daughters  of  pleasure  were  there,  "  Hugh,  the  needle  seller," 
and  all  the  vagabonds  of  Langland's  tavern. 

And  perhaps  in  some  cellar  or  stables  the  "  iron  chains 
with  locks  and  keys  "  still  manacled  human  flesh  and  blood. 

This  "  Visitation  of  Bethlehem  Hospital,"  as  the  pro- 
ceedings of  the  Royal  Commission  were  entitled,  was  long 
preserved  in  the  Tower — and  it  is  now  in  the  Record  Office 
— so  many  sheets  of  darkening  parchments  stitched  together, 
so  many  lines  of  Latin  abbreviated  in  the  official  shorthand 
of  a  weary  scrivener.  I  have  translated  out  of  it  the  diverting 
history  of  the  most  amazing  in  our  long — very  long — gallery 
of  rogues,  but  it  yields  to  the  patient  and  well-equipped 
miner  other  metal  besides.  It  deals  with  the  people  amongst 
whom  Wycliffe,  Chaucer,  and  Langland  moved,  thoughtful, 
laughing,  or  indignant.  We  are  on  the  road  with  the  run- 
away servants,  with  the  poachers  who  raided  park  and 
preserve,  with  the  acrobats  and  beggars  who  crippled  their 
children,  with  the  disbanded  soldiers,  and  all  the  deathless 
army  of  tramps.  They  are  the  "  brewsters,  bakers,  way- 
farers, labourers,  thieves  and  robbers "  who  damage  the 
buildings,  and  bring  scandal  upon  the  house. 

It  is  an  indication  of  the  growing  decay  of  all  authority 
and  discipline  that  Divine  service  is  intermittent  at  the 
hospital,  and  that  the  service  books  are  hardly  sufficient. 
The  master  no  longer  wears  the  habit  and  star  of  the  order, 
and  there  are  no  longer  any  brothers  and  sisters,  though 
the  sister  of  the  master  was  quartered  on  the  house  on 
this  pretence. 

Thirty  years  later  the  nuns  of  St.  Helen's,  Bishopsgate, 
were  "  looking  through  their  windows  "  a  little  too  earnestly 
at   the   world  :    there   was    too    much   "  coming   and   going 


'^'■^.  iA***»»A 


The'author  is  liolding  the  roll  of  the  "Visitation  of  Bethlehem 
Hospital"  in  the  Museum  of  the  Record  Office. 


THE    OLD    "WHITE    HART  "    TAVERN,    BISHOPSGATE    WITHOUT. 

The  horseman  is  riding  through  what  was  once  known  as  "  Old  Bedlam  Gate."      Bethlem 
Street  was  much  widened  in  1829,  and  is  the  Liverpool  Street  of  to-day. 

(Sec  p.  82.) 


To  face  p.  84. 


AN  APPRECIATION  OF  PETER  85 

through  the  wicket  gate  "  ;  and  it  was  too  easy  to  procure 
the  keys.  And  so  there  was  a  visitation  there  also.  As 
a  result  of  it  the  prioress  was  ordered  to  "  sleep  in  her  own 
bedroom,"  and  no  visitors  were  to  be  admitted  to  roam  about 
the  cloisters.  Suspicion  and  slanders  were  in  the  air,  and 
an  iron  railing  was  ordered  to  be  "■  set  up  in  front  of  the 
kitchen." 

Towards  the  conclusion  of  the  inquiry  the  commissioners 
called  for  the  deed  of  foundation,  as  translated  in  Chapter  III, 
and  proposed  to  ascertain  whether  Bethleem  still  possessed 
the  whole  of  the  land  originally  donated  to  it  by  FitzMary 
in   1247. 

The  commissioners  had  been  informed  that  certain  tene- 
ments and  buildings  within  the  ancient  limits  had  been 
disposed  of  and  alienated.  They  were  proceeding  to  make 
inquiry,  when  several  citizens  appeared  before  them  and 
successfully  pleaded  the  privileges  of  the  city,  which  allowed 
them  to  refuse  to  appear  before  the  officials  of  the  king, 
except  at  certain  places.  Presumably  these  champions  of 
civic  liberty  had  bought,  leased,  or  encroached  on  the 
property  of  the  hospital.  Two  hundred  and  thirty  years 
later  it  was  discovered  by  another  Royal  Commission  that 
the  hospital  had  irretrievably  lost  whole  blocks  of  its  property 
in  Bishopsgate. 

Many  old  abbeys  and  castles  might  still  be  something 
better  than  a  heap  of  ruins,  if  they  had  not  been  treated 
as  inexhaustible  quarries  by  successive  generations.  So 
many  people — collectors,  kings,  doctors,  governors,  stewards 
and  tenants — have  carried  away  stone  after  stone  year  by 
year  that  it  is  something  of  a  miracle  that  to-day  Bethlehem 
Hospital  is  anything  more  than  a  name  or  a  memory. 


CHAPTER   XI 

FOES  AND   FRIENDS 

The  illustration  which  I  have  inserted  in  the  text  is  taken 
from  a  manuscript  life  of  St.  Guthlac  of  Croyland  Abbey, 
near  Peterborough.  You  are  taken  into  the  chapel,  where 
you  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  altar.  The  nimbed  Guthlac 
stoops  down  and  gazes  fixedly  and  steadily  into  the  face 
of  the  demented  Egga,  who  has  been  brought  by  his  friends 
in  order  that  the  evil  spirit  may  be  exorcised.  Guthlac  takes 
the  girdle  that  has  encircled  his  saintly  body,  and  binds  it 
round  the  sufferer's  waist.  Straightway  the  foul  fiend, 
flecked  and  spotted,  horned  and  winged,  issues  from  Egga's 
mouth  to  the  manifest  astonishment  of  his  companions. 

In  the  pageant  of  Bethlehem  Hospital  the  exorcist  must 
have  his  place  as  well  as  the  limitour,  the  physician,  and  the 
porter. 

He  was  trained  by  the  Church  to  distinguish  between  true 
"  possession  "  and  what  was  merely  "  black  bile."  In  posses- 
sion, for  example,  the  "  patient  speaks  volubly  in  a  tongue 
unknown  to  anybody  else  "  ;  or  he  professes  to  disclose  the 
most  inscrutable  of  mysteries  ;  or  he  exhibits  strength  and 
powers  far  beyond  his  normal  capacities. 

The  demons  (he  is  reminded)  are  very  artful,  and  he  must 
always  be  on  his  guard.  They  may  assume  the  voice  of 
saint  or  angel,  or  they  may  persuade  the  patient  by  a  vision 
that  he  has  recovered  his  senses.  Sometimes — just  to  em- 
barrass the  holy  priest — the  demon  will  even  send  his  victim 
to  sleep. 

The  old  world  of  the  East  detected  supernatural  agency 

86 


FOES  AND   FRIENDS 


87 


behind   the   phenomena  of  mental  disease  :    the   ahenist   of 
to-day  bases  them  on  the  natural  disorders  of  the  body. 

The  service  of  exorcism  might  last  for  hours  (no  wonder 
the  exhausted  patient  sometimes  went  to  sleep  !),  and  con- 
sisted of  menacing  adjurations,  a  long  series  of  psalms,  and 
much  fervent  supplication.  In  the  actual  ceremony  the 
exorcist   just   touched    the   heart  or  head   of  the   possessed 


ST.    GUTHLAC  OF   CROYLAND   AS  AN   EXORCIST. 

with  the  holy  relics,  signed  the  forehead  with  the  sign  of 
the  cross,  and  laid  one  end  of  the  stole  around  the  neck. 
The  sufferer,  if  well  enough,  had  already  been  fortified  for 
the  conflict  with  the  powers  of  darkness  by  prayer  and 
fasting,  by  confession  made,  and  by  the  Blessed  Sacrament 
received. 

There  were,  however,  some  evil  influences  in  the  hospital 
at  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century,  which  no  service  of 


88     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

exorcism  served  to  banish.     Peter,  the  porter,  had  been  ex- 
pelled, but  his  spirit  still  haunted  the  place. 

In  1406  there  were  "defects  to  correct,"  and — only  three 
years  after  a  most  searching  visitation — it  "  may  be  necessary 
to  remove  master  and  servants."  Unfortunately  the  chan- 
cellor, to  whom  the  visitation  of  the  king's  hospitals  pertained, 
was  too  busy  to  attend  to  his  duty. 

There  seems,  indeed,  to  have  been  at  this  time  in  many  of 
the  religious  houses  too  great  a  love  of  luxury,  and  too 
frequently  a  spirit  of  indifference  ;  there  were  even  suspicions 
of  immorality.  Accordingly,  in  1410,  parliament,  which  no 
doubt  reflected  the  indignation  or  misgivings  of  the  laity, 
urged  Henry  IV  to  partition  out  all  church  lands  between  the 
king,  his  lords,  and  disinterested  commons.  The  kir^  vaguely 
promised  to  submit  the  proposal  to  his  council,  but  parliament 
felt  constrained  to  return  to  the  subject  in  the  following  year, 
when  it  presented  a  petition  for  the  reformation  of  hospitals. 
"  Many  hospitals,"  it  was  urged,  "  be  for  the  most  part 
decayed,  and  the  goods  and  profits  of  the  same  be  with- 
drawn, and  spent  in  the  use  of  others.  " 

There  seems  a  special  and  personal  reference  to  the 
scandals  which  still  discredited  the  royal  administration  of 
Bethlehem  Hospital,  in  the  preamble  of  the  petition  that 
these  hospitals  exist  partly  to  "  maintain  those  who  have  lost 
their  wits  and  memory." 

The  battle  of  Agincourt  smothered  the  movement  for 
reform,  and  the  hospital  appears  to  have  gone  from  bad  to 
worse  :  no  doubt  the  master  was  an  absentee. 

However,  in  some  form  and  measure  at  any  rate,  the  work 
among  the  insane  went  on,  and  attendants  were  exempted  in 
the  fifteenth  as  well  as  in  the  twentieth  century  from  service 
on  a  jury,  because  they  could  not  safely  leave  their  patients. 
In  the  city  Letter-book  K,  fol.  1526  (1436),  one  William- 
Mawere,  citizen  and  tailor,  was  exempted  from  service  on  the 
jury  or  in  the  watch,  "  because  his  duty  requires  him  to  be 
daily  and  without  intermission  in  attendance  on  the  poor 
frenzied  and  demented  creatures  who  are  housed  in  the  hos- 
pital of  the  Blessed  Mary  of  Bedlam,  Bishopsgate  Without." 


FOES  AND  FRIENDS  89 

In  the  following  year  (1437)  Edward  Atherton  was  granted 
the  "  custody  of  the  hospital  with  all  the  profits  and  emolu- 
ments thereof"  :  he  had  succeeded  Robert  Dale  just  deceased, 
who  seems  to  have  been  appointed  to  the  mastership  in  1423. 
He  at  once  petitioned  the  council  of  Henry  VI  (then  a  boy  of 
fourteen)  to  order  an  inquiry  into  "  various  scandals  and  abuses 
at  the  hospital  of  St.  Mary  of  Beddeleem  '  due  to  the  neglect 
of  former  masters."  In  response  the  mayor  and  aldermen 
and  sheriffs  were  authorized  to  ascertain  how  far  "  the  chapel, 
graveyard,  houses,  lands,  and  revenues  "  had  been  affected  by 
the  "  dilapidations,  pillagings,  trespasses,  and  wastings " 
alleged,  and  were  ordered  to  present  a  full  report  to  the  king 
in  chancery  as  speedily  as  possible. 

"  We  have  assigned  to  you  the  duty  of  ascertaining  what 
removals  there  have  been,  what  sales,  what  robberies,  of 
books,  jewels,  muniments,  and  other  goods,  by  whom  these 
crimes  have  been  committed,  in  what  years,  and  to  what 
amounts." 

It  would  appear  from  the  language  of  this  order  as  if  price- 
less charters,  chronicles,  and  other  documents  of  historical 
value  had  disappeared  from  the  muniment  chest  :  doubtless 
they  had  been  sold  to  the  cookshops  to  wrap  up  hot  pies,  or 
to  the  quack  doctor  for  his  parchment  charms. 

And  some  of  the  technical  words  employed  leave  us  in  no 
doubt  but  that  portions  of  the  quadrangle  were  in  ruins  ;  the 
tenements — let  on  long  leases — needed  repairs,  for  which 
there  was  no  money  available ;  the  gardens  and  orchards 
had  been  stripped  of  their  fruit  ;  bakehouse  and  stable  had 
probably  invaded  the  cemetery. 

It  was  further  stated  that  "  Divine  service  was  almost  at  an 
end  " :  from  a  word  or  two  used  we  gather  that  the  chapel 
had  been  despoiled  of  its  metal  work  and  precious  stones  : 
perhaps  it  was  once  more  profaned  as  a  shelter  for  the 
vagrants,  thieves,  and  cripples  of  the  road. 

The  concluding  sentences  addressed  to  the  civic  commis- 
missioners  give  us  contemporary  evidence  of  the  traditional 
work  of  the  hospital.  "  It  is  alleged  that  almsgiving  and 
Other  accustomed  works  of  piety,  such  as  the  succour  of  dis- 


90     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

traught  lunatics  and  of  other  poor  and  sickly  persons,  who 
flock  to  the  hospital  daily  and  there  reside,  are  like  to  be 
abolished,  unless  a  remedy  is  speedily  applied." 

Only  a  spark  of  the  charity,  it  is  obvious,  still  glowed,  but 
the  good  folk  of  London  did  not  allow  the  fire  to  be  ex- 
tinguished. It  was  indeed  difficult  for  the  aldermen  to 
improve  the  revenues  of  the  foundation,  or  to  infuse  energy 
and  conscientiousness  into  its  administration,  so  long  as  the 
master  was  a  nominee  of  the  crown,  and  was  a  pluralist  as 
well  as  an  absentee. 

But  the  hospital  had  good  friends  as  well  as  foes.  In 
1412  it  was  worth  the  while  of  a  fraudulent  rogue  (one  Der- 
man,  a  labourer)  to  pretend  to  be  a  servant  of  Bedlem,  and  a 
collector  for  its  charities  in  the  streets  of  London.  He  had 
indeed  collected  "many  alms,"  when  he  was  arrested  and  put 
in  the  pillory  for  an  hour  with  an  iron-bound  box  for  alms 
about  his  neck.  And  throughout  the  whole  of  the  fifteenth 
century  legacies  were  trickling  through  our  gate  :  indeed,  our 
sick  had  always  some  benefactors  to  remember  in  their 
prayers,  as  they  told  their  beads. 

In  1408,  for  example,  John  Gower,  the  famous  poet  and 
friend  of  Chaucer,  as  he  lay  dying  in  the  cloister  of  St.  Mary's 
Priory,  Southwark,  left  eightpence  to  each  of  the  patients  of 
Bedlam. 

John  Carpenter  by  a  will  dated  1441  left  forty  shillings  for 
our  "  poor  inmates."  He  was  the  famous  town  clerk  of 
London  who  founded  the  City  of  London  School,  and  as  one 
of  the  executors  of  Dick  Whittington  he  may  have  allotted  us 
a  share  in  the  money  he  was  commissioned  to  distribute 
among  the  poor. 

Then  there  was  that  most  charitable  and  responsive  of 
men — whether  money  was  wanted  for  a  sermon  or  a  gate. 
Stephen  Forster  (formerly  mayor)  directed  in  his  will  of  1458 
that  £10  should  be  laid  out  for  "victuals,  linen,  and  woollen 
clothing  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  infirm  detained  within  the 
house."  The  word  "  detained  "  is  eloquent,  and  eloquent  is 
the  provision  of  warm  clothing  :  if  the  patient  had  torn  up 
his  clothes,  or  they  were  worn  out  in  his  wanderings,  all  he 


FOES  AND  FRIENDS  .  91 

could  do  was  to  creep  deeper  into  the  straw,  away  from  the 
draught  of  an  unglazed  window. 

In  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  I  think  that  I 
discern  the  good  work  of  the  confraternity  of  St.  Mary  of 
Bethleem.  This  guild  crystallized  into  personal  and  practical 
service  the  natural  piety  of  the  citizens.  I  have  no  doubt 
that  it  inspired  the  legacies  of  the  benevolent,  and  stimu- 
lated the  devotion,  sympathy,  and  temper  so  essential  in  an 
attendant  on  the  sick  in  brain  or  nerve. 

This  is  what  William  Gregory  wrote  down  in  his  common- 
place book  about  1 451,  the  year  of  his  mayoralty,  and  his 
testimony  suggests  that  the  commission  of  1437  had  resulted 
in  reform  and  renewed  the  usefulness  of  the  hospital. 

"  A  church  of  Our  Lady  that  is  named  Bedlem.  And  in 
that  place  are  found  many  men  that  have  fallen  out  of  their 
wits.  Right  well  are  they  cared  for  in  that  place,  and  some 
are  restored  to  health  again,  but  some  are  there  for  ever,  for 
they  are  incurable.  And  unto  that  place  many  indulgences 
have  been  granted,  more  than  they  of  the  place  know."  He 
is  referring  to  the  indulgences  granted  by  the  popes  to 
Bethlehem  and  its  daughter-houses. 

"  Right  well  are  they  cared  for."  There  is  similar  testi- 
mony to  the  "  unceasing  care  of  the  physicians  "in  15 19,  but 
after  the  Reformation  more  than  a  century  passed  before  the 
care  and  comfort  of  the  sick  in  mind  formed  the  chief  concern 
of  their  legal  guardians. 

Some  fourteen  years  later  Gregory  had  found  no  reason  to 
withdraw  his  words  of  appreciation,  for  in  1465  he  left  our 
"  pouere  sicke  people  "  a  legacy  of  forty  shillings. 

Perhaps  John  Arundell,  master  of  Bethlehem  Hospital  in 
1457  and  1458,  may  himself  have  taken  Forster  and  Gregory 
through  the  infirmary.  He  was  the  chaplain  and  confessor  of 
Henry  VI,  but  he  was  also  a  doctor  of  medicine  and  the 
king's  "  first  physician."  Now  in  August,  1453,  Henry  VI 
lost  his  reason  and  memory,  his  powers  of  speech  and  move- 
ment, and  this  attack  of  insanity — which  recurred  till  his 
death — lasted  till  Christmas,  1454.  In  the  following  March  the 
Privy  Council  authorized  John  Arundell  and  other  physicians 


92     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

and  surgeons  to  administer  to  the  king  "  head-purges,"  to 
shave  his  head,  to  give  him  baths,  or  to  treat  him  "  according 
to  the  precepts  of  those  who  have  written  on  the  disease." 
Presumably  during  this  illness  of  the  king,  Arundell  often 
came  to  the  hospital  to  watch  the  methods  of  its  physicians, 
and  certainly  he  was  appointed  master  of  it  because  of  the 
skill  and  sympathy  which  he  had  exhibited  in  the  case  of 
Henry  VI.  In  his  case  Bethlem  was  the  stepping-stone  to  a 
bishopric — that  of  Chichester,  where  his  tomb  may  still  be 
seen  on  the  south  side  of  the  cathedral.  Unfortunately  the 
brasses  were  wrenched  out  of  it  by  Waller's  troopers,  or  I 
might  have  illustrated  the  text  with  a  portrait  of  our  first 
medical  superintendent.  However,  in  the  course  of  his 
episcopate  he  erected  a  screen,  upon  which  the  organ 
formerly  rested.  This  screen,  which  was  removed  from  its 
original  site  in  1862,  was  re-erected  quite  recently  in  the 
lower  chamber  of  the  campanile  outside  the  cathedral. 

Henry  VI  seems  to  have  been  of  defective  intellect  and 
to  have  suffered  from  dementia  from  1464  to  1470,  when  he 
lay  in  the  Tower  "  dirty,  ill-dressed,  and  neglected."  He  is 
said  to  have  had  religious  visions  and  to  have  prophesied, 
and  we  may  conclude  that  he  suffered  from  hallucinations 
of  hearing  and  seeing. 

Roses,  white  and  red,  grew  in  our  gardens  ;  roses,  red  and 
white,  adorned  our  altars  ;  but  a  time  came  when  it  was 
dangerous  to  wear  a  red  rose,  for  that  was  the  badge  of  the 
House  of  Lancaster,  and  the  city  stood  for  the  white  rose 
of  York.  In  the  Wars  of  the  Roses  the  tide  of  battle 
actually  washed  our  walls  one  day  in  the  May  of  1470,  when 
Faulconbridge  launched  his  Kentish  sailors  under  the  red 
rose  of  Henry  VI  against  Bishop's  Gate.  He  burnt  many 
"  fair  houses,"  and  endeavoured  to  destroy  the  gate  with  gun- 
powder, straw,  and  fire.  Behind  barricades  our  cloister  and 
quadrangle  were  full  of  anxious  refugees,  and  a  canopy  of 
smoke — heavy  and  acrid — hung  over  all  the  hospital.  What 
terror  and  despair  must  have  racked  some  of  those  chained 
down  behind  their  doors  and  barred  windows,  as  steel 
clashed  and  fire  crackled  so  close  at  hand  ! 


j».V>.  ^^^^  'V. 


-^^Mi^'-7t'M 


94     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

Among  the  citizens  who  so  bravely  hurled  back  Faulcon- 
bridge  was  our  neighbour  and  benefactor,  Alderman  Sir  John 
Crosby,  of  Crosby  Hall.  He  left  ;^ioo  to  rebuild  Bishop's 
Gate,  which  had  grievously  suffered  in  the  assault  upon  it, 
and   he  also   left  twenty  shillings    to    be   given    among  the 


'  THE   COMMON   SEAL   OF   BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL. 

The  subject  of  the  seal  is  the  Assumption  of  the  Virgin  :    the  date  of  it  is  Henry  VI  or 

Henry  VII. 

{Photographed  from  an  engraved  copper  plate  preserved  at  the  Bodleian  Library,  Oxford.) 

'*  distract  people  being  then  within  the  hospital  of  Bedlam 
in  ready  money  or  good  wholesome  food,"  "  be  it  at  one  time, 
or  at  several  times." 

Sir  John  anticipated  the  principles  and  practice  which 
entered  with  the  twentieth  century.  "  Good,  wholesome  food  " 
will  help  the  body  to  cure  the  mind  :  without  some  "  ready 


FOES  AND  FRIENDS  95 

money "  for  immediate  needs  many  a  mental    convalescent 
may  relapse. 

Perhaps  hereafter  a  new  confraternity  may  arise  in 
Bethlem.  It  will  undertake  to  find  money  and  to  spend 
it  judiciously  in  suitable  cases  of  recovery.  It  will  seek — 
with  personal  sympathy  and  supervision — to  guide  the 
faltering  footsteps  of  those  who  have  to  face  the  world 
again. 


CHAPTER   XII 
THE  CONFRATERNITY 

There  are  chasms,  now  and  again,  in  our  chronology. 
Patent  rolls  and  letter-books,  at  present  uncalendared,  may 
yet  serve  to  lessen  their  number  and  width.  But  between 
1459  and  1 5 19  history  only  opens  her  lips  to  proclaim  for 
our  information  the  appointment  by  the  king  of  one  of  his 
chaplains  as  master,  or  warden,  of  the  hospital  of  Our  Lady 
of  Bethlem.  Thomas  Hervy,  doctor  of  theology,  was  warden 
for  one  month  only — the  last  of  his  life — in  1459  :  he  was 
an  Augustinian  friar,  and  his  advice  was  asked  about  some 
scheme  (was  it  alchemy?)  for  paying  Henry  VI's  debts  in 
"  good  gold  and  silver."  Hervy  was  succeeded  by  John 
Brown,  who  appears  to  have  died  in  1470.  I  have  found  an 
ancient  deed,  in  which  one  John  Myre  calls  the  world  to 
witness  that  he  owes  Master  John  Brown,  clerk,  the  master 
of  the  hospital  of  the  Blessed  Virgin  Mary  of  Bethlehem, 
some  £4.  sterling,  which  he  proposes  to  pay  some  six  months 
after  the  date  of  his  I  O  U,  that  is  to  say,  on  15th  December^ 
1464.  Brown  was  followed  by  John  Smeethe(or  Sneethe)  on 
1 8th  December,  1470.  I  have  not  found  the  warrant  for  the 
appointment  of  John  Davyson,  who  followed  Smeethe,  but  I 
note  that  he  was  dismissed  in  1479  :  he  had  worn  the  wrong 
rose,  I  think,  in  1471.  Davyson,  who  was  an  official  in  chan- 
cery, and  held  clerical  preferment  in  England  and  France,  was 
succeeded  by  Walter  Bate  and  William  Hobbs,  4th  Novem- 
ber, 1479,  as  joint  masters.  Apparently  one  of  the  two 
priests  was  in  a  moribund  condition,  for  the  grant  was  to  pass 

to  the  survivor  of  the  two.     The  next  name  on  my  list  of 

96 


THE   CONPRATERNITV  9; 

wardens  is  Thomas  Maudesley,  appointed  20th  September, 
1485.  There  is  a  curious  allusion  to  him  in  the  Rolls  of  Par- 
liament. "  Provided  always  that  the  said  Act  of  Resumption 
be  not  prejudicial  to  Thomas  Maudesley,  master  of  Our  Lady 
of  Bedlam,  by  whatsoever  name  he  is  called."  However,  what- 
ever his  alias,  he  must  have  been  a  well-known  figure  in  the 
household  of  the  mother  of  Henry  VH,  acting  apparently  as 
her  chaplain  and  almoner.  He  resigned  the  mastership  of 
Bethlehem  on  27th  June,  1494,  to  enable  Henry  VH  to  reward 
his  devoted  physician,  Thomas  Deynman,  who  would  seem 
also  to  have  been  a  doctor  of  divinity.  Deynman  also  served 
in  the  court  of  the  Lady  Margaret,  so  renowned  for  her 
love  of  religion  and  learning.  Henry  VH  cannot — even  in 
the  dry  official  grant — speak  too  warmly  of  his  medical  care 
and  devotion  : — "  day  by  day,  without  intermission  and  in 
manifold  ways,  he  renders  to  us  and  our  dearest  mother  good 
and  laudable  service."  Instinctively  I  feel  that  this  beloved 
physician  was  one  of  our  unknown  benefactors.  The  confra- 
ternity, which  charged  itself  with  the  maintenance  of  the 
hospital,  had  reason,  as  will  be  seen  a  little  further  on  in  this 
chapter,  to  praise  the  "  unceasing  solicitude  "  with  which  the 
physicians  treated  the  "  insane  and  the  frenzied."  Did  the 
life  and  labours  of  Thomas  Deynman  (?  1494-15 12)  inspire 
the  phrase  "  unceasing  solicitude  "  ?  By  the  by,  one  of  Deyn- 
man's  patients  was  "  Raynesford  that  is  mad."  It  appears 
from  some  items  in  his  privy  purse  accounts  that  Henry  VH 
paid  one  shilling  and  eightpence  for  "  bringing  of  Raynes- 
ford to  Bedlam,"  and  six  shillings  and  eightpence  for  his 
maintenance  there. 

During  all  these  years  our  ancient  house,  destined  to  sur- 
vive so  many  institutions  and  sentiments,  sat  and  watched 
act  after  act  as  it  was  played  out  in  the  theatre  of  national 
history. 

She  sat  and  watched — one  day  in  1485,  after  the  battle 
of  Bosworth — the  mayor  and  aldermen  ride  on  their  way  to 
Shoreditch  :  she  watched  Plenry  VH,  escorted  by  an  armed 
host,  pass  in  front  of  her  walls  with  standards  and  other 
trophies  on  his  way  to  hear  a  Te  Deum   at   St.  Paul's.     She 

8 


98     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

was  in  her  place  on  "  Evil  May  Day "  in  1 518,  when  the 
craftsmen  pillaged  the  houses  of  the  Flemings.  The  sermon 
which  inflamed  public  indignation  against  the  cheap  labour 
of  the  aliens  was  preached  almost  within  her  hearing,  and 
she  shuddered  at  the  gibbets  set  up  for  the  rioters  outside 
her  gate. 

But  the  work  went  on  with  the  blessing  of  Innocent  VIII, 
and  the  physician  went  his  rounds  week  by  week,  whether 
the  play  was  a  farce  or  a  tragedy.  In  a  page  or  two  you  will 
read  that  the  physician  devoted  himself  to  his  patients  with 
"unceasing    solicitude."     I    am  sure   that    he   did   his    best 


i/ 


3  I" 


"-^^ 


i;;?^'^^^3J, 


-■''       \ 


PHYSICIAN  AND    PUPIL. 


according  to  his  light  and  the  traditions  of  his  craft.  He  did 
not  dream  of  leaving  to  Nature»the  cure  of  her  handiwork  : 
he  was  steeped  in  superstition  and  astrology.  He  considered 
that  the  pillory  was  the  proper  punishment  for  the  crazy 
creature  who  said  that  she  had  "trafficked  with  an  evil 
spirit "  :  he  concocted  medicine  for  the  brain  out  of  certain 
plants,  because  they  bore  some  sort  of  resemblance  to  the 
shape  of  brain  or  head.  But  he  had  his  virtues.  He 
prescribed  cheerful  surroundings  for  all  cases  of  mental 
illness,  and  he  ordered  a  light  or  heavy  diet  with  due  regard 
to    the  acuteness    or  mildness   of  the   attack.      He  had  his 


THE   CONFRATERNITY  99 

methods  also  for  grappling  with  the  invisible  idea,  and  for 
overcoming  an  obsession.  If  a  patient  suffered  from  exalta- 
tion of  spirit,  he  arranged  that  bad  and  unpleasant  news 
should  be  frequently  communicated  to  him.  If  the  sight  of 
a  person  in  black  provoked  an  agony  of  terror,  he  sur- 
rounded his  patient  for  days  with  servants  in  black,  and 
instructed  visitors  to  assume  sombre  apparel. 

Our  physician  has  his  little  arts,  or  else  he  would  not  be  so 
rich.  He  has  scriptural  quotations  for  the  bedsides  of  the 
devout,  but  he  has  also  a  story  of  "  merry  tales  out  of  the 
Bible  or  other  tragedies "  :  for  the  physician  may  assist  a 
cure  and  line  his  pocket  by  provoking  a  laugh  from  his 
patients. 

He  is  a  great  stickler  for  medical  etiquette,  and  has  no 
mind  to  be  classed  with  the  surgeons,  who  still  associate  with 
low-born  barbers.  They  are  quite  capable  of  any  breach  of 
etiquette.  The  physician  must  not  make  himself  too  cheap, 
and  he  must  not  risk  his  position  by  levity  or  indiscretion. 
He  is  never  tired  of  quoting  to  his  pupils  an  injunction  of  his 
favourite  author :  "  Consider  he  not  over  openly  the  lady  or 
the  daughter  or  other  fair  woman  in  great  men's  houses,  nor 
offer  to  kiss  them,  that  he  come  not  to  the  indignation  of 
his  lord." 

A  little  gossip  about  past  happenings,  and  some  literary 
flights  of  fancy,  have  beguiled  us — not  unpleasantly,  I  hope, 
along  the  road,  and  we  have  reached  a  milestone  which  is 
lettered  A.D.   15 19. 

Before  we  continue  our  journey,  let  us  rest  here  awhile 
to  read  of  the  letters,  in  which  six  of  the  popes  threw  open 
the  gates  of  forgiveness  to  all  who  did  for  the  "least  of  His 
brethren  "  what  they  would  have  done  for  Christ  "  sick  and 
in  prison." 

In  the  British  Museum  there  is  still  preserved  a  certifi- 
cate of  admission  into  the  confraternity  of  St.  Mary  of 
Bethlehem,  Bishopsgate.  It  was  given  to  any  one  who  was 
willing  to  perform  certain  religious  exercises,  and  to  con- 
tribute towards  the  funds  of  the  hospital.  Those  who  joined 
the  guild  were  assured  certain  spiritual  benefits  and  privileges 


100     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

both  in  this  life  and  in  the  life  to  come.  This  certificate  is  of 
great  value  as  evidence  of  the  antiquity  and  continuity  of 
our  present  work.  I  shall  therefore  quote  much  of  it  word 
for  word. 

"  To  our  beloved  in  Christ  [A  or  B]  greeting  from  John 
Cavalari,  warden  or  master,  and  the  brethren  of  the  house 
or  hospital  of  the  Blessed  Mary  of  Bethlehem  without 
Bishop's  Gate,  of  the  city  of  London,  a  branch  or  daughter- 
house  of  the  same  monastery  of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  in 
immediate  dependence  on  the  court  of  Rome,  of  the  order  of 
the  knighthood  of  the  star,  and  of  the  rule  of  St.  Augustine, 
and  of  the  province  of  Syria. 
~~ "  Now  whereas  several  of  the  supreme  pontiffs  have  endowed 


^ntfsrtaRBfi  U  -fie  loaslKiiute  J  6a«rrfir«t:  ili.ttis«  porigcatf £»<5t>{iift^c6  cti^Bfa'&sifS  u^i&fmmimmmuxm^  j 


the  aforesaid  monastery  of  Bethlehem,  as  well  as  all  and  each 
of  its  branches  or  daughter-houses,  in  whatsoever  places 
existing,  with  many  privileges  and  special  graces, 

"  And  whereas,  in  order  that  the  minds  of  Christ's  faithful 
people  might  be  the  more  readily  persuaded  to  works  of 
charity  and  piety,  they  have  graciously  vouchsafed  a  share 
in  certain  indulgences  and  remissions  of  sins  to  those  who 
hold  out  helping  hands  towards  the  keeping  up  of  the  church 
and  of  all  the  places  aforesaid  as  well  as  towards  the  support 
of  the  mentally  afflicted,  the  insane,  the  frenzied,  and  others 
residing  in  the  same  places,  who  are  there  lodged  and  cared 
for  with  great  diligence  and  attention,  and  are  treated  by  the 
physicians  with  unceasing  solicitude. 

"Amongst   those   who   hold   out   such  helping  hands  are 


THE   CONFRATERNITY  loi 

especially  such  as  cause  themselves  to  be  inscribed  upon  the 
confraternity  of  the  said  monastery  or  of  any  of  its  branches 
or  daughter-houses,  by  contributing  annually  to  it,  as  is  more 
fully  set  forth  in  the  apostolic  letters  to  that  end  indited, 
which  still  remain  in  the  care  of  the  said  hospital  of  Bethlehem 
in  the  city  of  London. 

"We  therefore,  the  master  or  warden  and  the  brothers  in 
community,  admit  you  [A  or  B]  on  account  of  the  sincere 
devotion,  benevolence  and  liberality  which  you  show,  or 
intend  hereafter  to  show,  towards  us  and  the  hospital  afore- 
said, into  our  confraternity,  and  we  have  made  you  to  become 
one  of  our  brotherhood,  and  by  this  certificate  to  participate 
in  all  the  privileges,  intercessions,  and  other  benefits  granted, 
or  to  be  granted  to  us  and  our  hospital. 

"  In  token  whereof  we  have  caused  this  letter  to  be 
written,  and  we  have  sealed  it  with  the  seal  of  our 
fraternity. 

"  Given  in  the  year  of  our  Lord,  15 19." 

In  this  certificate  details  are  given  of  indulgences  granted 
by  six  of  the  popes.  They  are  Honorius  III  (1216-1227), 
Boniface  VIII  (i  295-1 303),  John  XXII  (13 16-1334), 
Clement  VI  (1341-1352),  Calixtus  III  (1455-1458),  and 
Innocent  VIII    (1484-1492). 

The  apostolic  letters  no  longer  remain  in  the  care  of 
Bethlehem  Hospital.  The  muniment  room  was  plundered  in 
1437,  and  no  doubt  the  rest  of  its  contents  disappeared  at  the 
Reformation — and  the  historian  is  sorely  tempted  to  build  in 
the  air.  We  owe  it  to  the  national  archives  that  anything  has 
survived  to  us  out  of  the  pre-Reformation  foundation.  Our 
original  coat-of-arms  is  to  be  seen  in  a  Tudor  manuscript  of 
the  Heralds'  College,  and  I  have  found  in  the  British  Museum, 
after  years  of  searching,  a  seal  of  the  hospital — rather  a  crude 
production — which  is  ascribed  by  one  of  the  Museum  experts 
to  a  date  after  1 500. 

I  found  it  in  a  catalogue  of  "  detached  seals,"  LXXVIII  3 
(E  drawer,  4).  It  appears  to  have  been  catalogued  with 
several  odd  impressions  in  1888,  but  the  Museum  authorities 
seem    to  have    kept  no  record  of  the  original  matrix.     An 


I02     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

impression  of  this  seal  is  at  present  in  my  possession,  but 
I  will  hand  it  over  to  Bridewell  or    Bethlem. 

The  superscription  reads  :  SiGILLU  [m]  WardoneS  BEATI 
Marie  [m\  de  Bethlem — the  seal  of  the  warden  of  the 
Blessed  Mary  of  Bethlem.  Apparently  wardones  is  a  mis- 
take for  wardonis,  if  there  is  such  a  word  in  late  Latin :  or 
the  original  may  have  been  War.Domus  (Warden  of  the 
House)  ;  and  beati  (masc.)  is  made  to  agree  with  a  feminine 
word.  In  the  oval — above — is  a  six-rayed  star  of  Bethlehem 
with  the  cross  in  the  centre  of  it.  Underneath  a  canopy  sits 
the  Virgin  Mary  with  the  child  Jesus,  whom  "  the  wise  men 
from  the  east"  are  worshipping.  Two  of  the  kings  stand 
with  crowns  on  their  heads  and  offerings  in  their  hands,  the 
third  kneels  to  make  his  offering,  and  has  removed  his  crown. 
Above  them  is  another  star.  Below  are  the  rounded  arches 
of  the  caravanserai,  with  a  manger  beneath  them.  Looking 
up  at  the  Holy  Child  are  a  horned  ox  and  an  ass  with  long 
ears  :  their  heads  can  best  be  seen  by  reversing  the  seal. 
The  dots  under  the  rounded  arch  are  ornamental,  and  of  no 
significance. 

Possibly  the  matrix  from  which  the  seal  was  taken  in 
1888  was  a  spoilt  and  discarded  die.  Before  I  forget  it, 
let  me  put  on  record  the  fact  that  there  is  a  drawing  of  a  seal 
of  Bethlehem  Hospital,  said  to  be  from  a  document  in  the 
"Augmentation  Office,"  in  the  Guildhall  Library.  It  may 
be  found  in  a  volume  entitled  "  Monastic  Seals,"  and  I 
have  reproduced  it  as  a  lantern-slide  in  the  collection  of 
slides  which  I  have  prepared  for  the  hospital. 

Thus  much  for  the  seals  ;  let  me  now  invite  the  reader 
to  see  how  a  beautiful  coat  of  arms  was  spoilt  by  Sir 
W.  Dugdale,  Garter  King  of  Arms,  in  1676.  I  have  again 
to  thank  Mr.  Everard  Green,  Somerset  Herald,  for  taking 
me  back  to  our  original  coat  of  arms.  For  all  that  follows 
I  am  indebted  to  his  never-failing  kindness. 

The  two  examples  of  our  original  arms  in  the  Heralds' 
College  are  in  an  early  Tudor  MS.  marked  L  10, 
where,  on  folio  6'jb,  the  arms  are  very  clearly  and  well 
painted,  and  in  Augustine  Vincent,  Windsor  Heraldic  MS. 


THE   SEAL   OF   THE    WARDEN    OF   THE    HOUSE 
OF   THE   BLESSED    MARY    OF    BETHLEM. 


BISHOP'S    GATE   AS    RESTORED    IN    I479. 
{Sec  p.  94) 


To  face  p.   102. 


THE   CONFRATERNITY 


103 


No.    187,    where    there    is    a    pen-and-ink    drawing    of    the 
same. 

Mr.  Green's  technical  blazon  is  as  follows  : — 

"  Argent,  two  bars    sable,  in   chief  a  label   of  five  points 

gules,  surmounted  by  a  chief  azure  charged  with  a  star  of 

fifteen    rays   or,    thereon    a    Host   marked   with   a   cross   of 

the   third,   between,  on    the    dexter,   a   golden    chalice   and 


THE  PRE-REFORMATION   ARMS   OF   BETHLEHEM   HOSPITAL. 


issuant   therefrom   a  Host ;    and,  on  the  sinister,   a   golden 
basket  containing  manna,  all  proper." 

To  translate  the  heraldic  allusions  into  less  technical 
language  :  the  lower  part  of  the  shield  is  thought  to  carry 
the  arms  of  the  founder,  Simon  FitzMary.  Above  the 
arms  is  a  red  label  of  five  points.  The  label  is  usually 
the  sign  of  an  eldest  son,  and  Mr.  Green  sees  a  reference 
to  our  Lord  as  the  first-born  of  all  creatures,  the  five  red 
points  of  the  label  recalling  the  five  wounds  of  Christ. 
The  rest   of  the  arms  allude  to  the  history  or  significance 


104     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

of  Bethlehem— the  "house  of  bread";  on  the  right  (of 
the  reader)  is  a  basket  of  manna  or  bread,  an  allusion  to 
the  "  Bread   which   came    down   from  heaven "  :  to    the   left 


THE   PRESENT  ARMS  OF   BETHLEM. 


is  the  chalice  and  Host — the  body  and  blood  of  Christ. 
Between  chalice  and  basket  is  the  blazing  star  of  Bethlehem 
(Matthew  Paris  calls  it  "  crinita ")  with  tresses  of  fire  like 


THE   CONFRATERNITY  105 

a  comet.  In  the  centre  of  the  star  which  shines  in  the 
blue  vault  of  heaven  is  a  Host  marked  with  a  red  cross. 
Mr.  Green  notwithstanding,  I  cannot  help  conjecturing,  as 
I  have  already  suggested  in  my  second  chapter,  that  the 
red  cross  is  an  allusion  to  the  knights  hospitallers  of  the 
order  of  the  Bethlemite  brothers. 

One  of  my  lady  patients  has  very  kindly  drawn  for  me 
the  present  arms  of  Bethlem,  in  which  a  hideous  skull  has 
replaced  the  Host.  The  skull  appears  to  be  an  allusion 
to  the  massacre  of  the  children  at  Bethlehem. 

For  more  than  six  centuries  and  a  half  Bethlehem 
Hospital  has  been  watching,  as  a  spectator,  the  drama  of 
history.  But  she  has  also  played  her  part  in  it,  and  each 
of  the  three  theatres  in  which  she  has  acted  as  priest, 
physician,  beggar,  gaoler,  benefactor,  entertainer,  or  villain, 
has  its  antiquities,  its  romance,  and  other  associations. 
Quite  a  collection  of  portraits,  caricatures,  prints,  and  other 
pictures  relating  to  Bishopsgate,  Moorfields,  or  Southwark, 
is  only  waiting  for  a  museum.  Such  a  museum  ought 
to  be  accessible  to  visitors  as  well  as  to  patients.  Perhaps 
the  recreation  hall  might  also  serve  as  our  hall  of  history. 


CHAPTER    XIII 

RE-FOUNDED 

The  accession  of  Henry  VIII  introduced  into  England 
from  Italy  the  renaissance  of  learning.  Books  and  manu- 
scripts were  imported  from  Italy :  Italian  ecclesiastics  who 
could  unlock  the  treasure-house  of  the  ancient  classics  were 
granted  pensions  and  sinecures  by  a  learned  king.  Such 
an  ecclesiastic  may  have  been  John  Cavalari,  who  was 
appointed  warden  of  the  hospital  in  15 12.  He  appears 
to  have  been  one  of  the  Cavalaris  of  Lucca.  They  im- 
ported rich  cloths  in  exchange  for  English  wools,  and 
made  the  king  large  loans  on  the  security  of  the  customs. 
One  of  the  Cavalaris  was,  I  imagine,  the  Italian  artist 
who  was  commissioned  by  Wolsey  to  build  his  mausoleum. 
It  was  at  a  parliament  held  in  Bridewell  Palace  that  a 
demand  was  made  in  1522  upon  this  "  Prior  of  Our  Lady 
of  Bedlam  "  to  contribute  ^100  (more  than  two  years'  salary) 
towards  the  expenses  of  the  French  War.  At  the  time 
the  hospital  was  rated  at  ;^5o  per  annum,  and  paid  a 
procuration  fee  to  Wolsey  of  forty  shillings. 

Among  the  foremost  to  take  deep  draughts  from  the 
re-discovered  wells  of  learning  was  Sir  Thomas  More.  The 
author  of  ''  Utopia "  lived  at  Crosby  Place  (or  Hall), 
Bishopsgate  (c.  15 16-1523),  and  must  have  often  sauntered 
across  the  street — just  lately  paved  with  cobble  stones — 
to  Bedlam  Gate.  More  has  introduced  into  his  writings 
many  reminiscences  of  these  visits.  P'or  example,  in  the 
pages  of  the  ''Four  Last  Things"  (c.  1522),  there  is  an 
allusion  to  a  whimsical  incident  of  which  he  was  an   eye- 

io6 


RE-FOUNDED  107 

witness.  He  is  in  his  mediaeval  mood,  and  preaches  a 
sermon  on  the  madness  of  sin. 

"  Think  not,"  he  says,  "  that  everything  is  pleasant  that 
men  for  madness  laugh  at.  For  thou  shalt  in  Bedlam  see 
one  laughing  at  the  knocking  of  his  head  against  a  post, 
and  yet  there  is  little  pleasure  therein.  But  what  will  ye 
say  if  ye  see  the  sage  fool  laugh,  when  he  hath  done 
his  neighbour  wrong,  for  which  he  shall  weep  for  ever 
hereafter  ?  " 

The  "  scourge,"  "  wire,"  or  whip  was  no  doubt  in  daily 
use  in  Bethlem.  I  imagine,  however,  that  it  was  principally 
used,  as  the  tamer  uses  it,  to  protect  the  keepers  by  in- 
ducing a  sense  of  fear  in  their  charges.  However,  as 
whipping  was  the  universal  punishment  and  panacea  for 
mischievous  conduct  or  for  offensive  speeches,  no  doubt 
More  had  often  seen  chastisement  administered  as  a  sort  of 
medicine — the  "  dose  to  be  repeated  as  often  as  necessary." 

In  his  "Apology  "  (1533),  for  instance,  he  tells  us  of  a  man 
who  had  been  "  put  into  Bedlam,  and  afterwards  by  beating 
and  correction  gathered  his  remembrances  to  come  again  to 
himself  But,  being  thereupon  set  at  liberty  and  walking 
about  abroad,  his  old  fancies  began  again  to  fall  in  his 
head." 

It  appears  that  this  man  was  habitually  guilty  of  very 
disgusting  behaviour  in  various  churches.  Complaint  was 
made  to  the  chancellor,  and  he  determined  to  cure  him — 
after  the  prescriptions  of  Bishopsgate. 

"  I  caused  him  to  be  bound  to  a  tree  in  the  street  before  the 
whole  town,  and  constables  striped  him  with  rods  till  they 
waxed  weary."  The  treatment  was  justified  by  its  success, 
for  More  remarks  :  "  Verily,  God  be  thanked,  I  hear  no  harm 
of  him  now."  Perhaps  there  is  more  virtue  in  the  medicine 
of  the  "  cat "  than  we  imagine. 

The  word  "  Bedlam,"  which  is  only  one  of  a  dozen  variants 
of  Bethlehem,  our  mother-city,  no  doubt  had  long  been  a 
term  of  abuse  or  derision.  In  the  literature  of  the  Renais- 
sance it  is  found  in  the  mouths  of  literary  and  theological 
controversialists,  who  helped   themselves  liberally  to  stones 


> 


io8     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

from  our  walls.  The  first  to  use  it  as  a  missile  to  sling  at  an 
opponent  appears  to  have  been  the  Rev.  John  Skelton  :  he 
was  the  rector  of  Diss,  in  Norfolk,  where  Atherton,  one  of  our 
masters,  is  buried.  Formerly  the  tutor  of  Henry  VIII,  he 
developed  later  on  into  a  poet  of  great  vigour  and  originality. 


L.. 


'  F.temo  maniuM4ie  dumiidcra  fulgent 
iBquoraduraqitomenrheclaiirea  Koftra  vsrcBit.^^ 
i'  ^Hincnoftrumceteb«'ecni«mereferettit3!5a?lr.aiT. 

A  5  Vndfq;Skeltonismemo?aibi>H?2Ueradortis       A 


Always  a  clerical  Bohemian,  he  was  credited  with  many  out- 
rages on  good  taste  and  decency,  and  Wolsey  could  hardly  be 
expected  to  push  his  fortunes  in  the  Church,  as  he  desired. 
In  revenge  Skelton  penned  a  virulent  and  venomous  satire 
against  the  "  butcher's  dog  " — the  cardinal.  Just  when  you 
think    that   he  has   exhausted  his  vocabulary    of  libel    and 


RE^FOUNDED  .      109 

innuendo,  suddenly  it  occurs  to  him  to  shout  out  that  Wolsey 
(no  longer  a  favourite)  is 

"  Such  a  mad  bedleme 
For  to  rule  this  realm." 

Another  quotation  may  be  given  from  one  of  the  rarest 
of  books,  "The  Hyeway  to  the  Spyttel  House"  (1536),  by 
R.  Copland. 

The  only  thing  which  stands  between  men  with  nagging 
wives  and  an  attack  of  madness  is  the  chance  of  getting  a 
bed  at  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital. 

"  We  have  chambers  purposely  for  them, 
Or  else  they  should  be  lodged  in  Bedlem." 

Sir  Thomas  More,  the  apostle  of  toleration,  and  Tyndale, 
the  translator  of  the  Bible,  used  the  word  "  Bedlam  "  as  a 
noun  or  adjective  in  their  theological  battles  with  a  fury 
worthy  of  the  origin  of  the  epithet. 

From  1529  to  1536  George  Boleyn,  Viscount  Rochford, 
was  the  governor,  keeper,  or  master  of  the  "  house  of  Our  Lady 
of  Bethlem,"  to  which  his  great-grandfather  (mayor,  1457) 
had  probably  been  a  benefactor.  The  beautiful  dark  eyes  of 
his  wanton  sister  procured  him  the  mastership,  and  much 
else  besides  in  gold  and  honours.  What  a  price  he  paid,  as 
he  lamented  on  the  scaffold,  for  preferring  the  "  vanities  of 
the  world  "  to  the  spirit  of  the  gospel,  of  which  he  had  been 
so  strenuous  a  champion  ! 

Did  Anne  Boleyn,  I  wonder,  visit  Bethlem  to  witness  the 
investiture  of  her  brother  in  the  merry,  madcap  days  before 
her  marriage,  when  the  king  was  still  infatuated,  and  his 
courtiers  staked  high  for  her  smile  ?  Perhaps  she  was  intro- 
duced to  some  of  the  subjects  of  her  brother's  kingdom,  and 
sent  her  frolicsome  suite  into  shrieks  of  laughter,  as  she  parried 
some  uncomplimentary  allusion  with  Tudor  coarseness. 

And  what  did  they  think  or  say  in  Bethlem  that  morning 
in  June,  1536,  when  the  news  came  that  the  master  had  been 
beheaded  in   the  Tower  on  the  most  revolting  of  charges  ? 


no     THE    STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

Perhaps  they  whispered  that  it  might  be  the  turn  of  the 
hospital  next  to  forfeit  the  royal  favour. 

The  master  and  his  sister,  Queen  Anne,  were  shovelled  into 
their  graves  of  shame  beneath  the  chancel  of  St.  Peter's 
church,  while  her  "  gentle  and  amiable  prince  "  was  solacing 
himself  with  music  and  the  ladies  of  the  court.  Within  the 
Tower  walls  our  master  still  lies — in  that  saddest  of  churches 
— in  front  of  the  altar.  The  bones  of  the  queen  and  of  her 
"  sweet  brother  "  were  exhumed  and  examined  by  permission 
of  Queen  Victoria. 

Dr.  Barnes — friar,  Protestant  reformer,  and  royal  agent — 
was  anxious  to  succeed  George  Boleyn,  and  was  ready  to 
reside  in  the  hospital,  so  that  he  might  be  under  the  benefi- 
cent eye  of  Thomas  Cromwell :  the  mastership  was  worth 
£\0^  and  he  "  would  sooner  have  it  than  a  bishopric."  It  was 
the  same  Dr.  Barnes  who  later  on  demanded  a  "  scorge  to 
tame  those  bedlames  with,"  but  Bishop  Bonner,  who  was 
one  of  them,  packed  off  to  heaven  in  a  chariot  of  fire  his 
Protestant  adversary. 

However,  after  an  interval  of  three  months,  Sir  Peter 
Mewtys  was  appointed  master :  a  muniment  book  in  Bride- 
well contains  the  copy  of  a  lease  granted  by  him  to  a  tenant 
of  the  hospital.  Mewtys  or  Mutas  was  the  son  of  a  French 
merchant,  the  French  secretary  of  Henry  VHI,  and  was  him- 
self a  confidential  agent  of  the  king.  We  find  him  trying  to 
negotiate  a  French  marriage  for  Henry  VHI,  and  assisting 
at  the  reception  of  Anne  of  Cleves.  He  fought  at  Calais  and 
Edinburgh,  and  was  knighted  for  his  services  in  1544.  In 
1537  he  married  Mistress  Ashley,  sister  of  a  London  mercer, 
and  had  a  house  near  the  Tower. 

Two  years  after  the  appointment  of  Mewtys  as  master, 
the  citizens  set  themselves  to  try  and  save  from  the  greed  and 
callousness  of  the  king  some  of  the  London  hospitals,  of  which 
Bethlem  was  one. 

When  you  are  negotiating  with  brigands,  you  are  anxious 
to  treat  for  a  ransom  on  economical  terms,  and  you  use  the 
language  of  diplomacy  in  attempting  to  bargain. 

In   1538  Sir  R.  Gresham  petitioned  Henry  VIII  for  four 


RE-FOUNDED  in 

religious  houses,  which  had  been  "  founded  only  for  the  relief 
and  comfort  of  poor  and  impotent  people  unable  to  help 
themselves."  These  were  the  priory  or  hospital  of  St.  Mary, 
Bishopsgate  (a  hospice  for  sick  people  often  confounded 
with  Bethlehem  Hospital),  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital, 
St.  Thomas's  Hospital,  and  the  New  Abbey  on  Tower  Hill  : 
Bethlem  is  not  mentioned  in  this  list,  perhaps  because  it  was 
held  to  be  the  personal  property  of  the  sovereign. 

Gresham  was  dealing  with  a  king  who  professed  to  be 
pillaging  from  the  highest  of  motives :  he  was  therefore 
diplomatic,  and  yet  persistent.  "  They  were  not  founded  for 
the  maintenance  of  canons,  priests,  and  monks  to  live  in 
pleasure,  nothing  regarding  the  miserable  people  lying  in 
every  street,  offending  every  clean  person  passing  by  with 
their  filthy  and  nasty  savours." 

A  year  passed,  and  once  more  the  city,  without  insinuating 
an  offer  of  compensation,  ingenuously  petitioned  that  the 
"late  dissolved  houses  be  made  over  to  them  with  their  rents 
and  revenues."  This  petition  was  refused  or  ignored,  for  the 
king  was  holding  out  for  better  terms.  But  on  ist  August, 
1540,  the  court  of  common  council,  perceiving  that  they  must 
be  the  first  to  move,  authorized  the  mayor  and  aldermen 
to  make  an  offer  of  £'joo  for  houses,  churches,  cloisters 
— "  if  they  can  be  gotten  no  cheaper  "  :  they  had  a  "  frugal 
mind." 

In  reply  Henry  upbraided  the  citizens  with  being  "  pynche- 
pence  "  (stingy),  and  let  the  matter  stand  over  for  four  years 
in  hope  that  delay  would  produce  a  higher  bid. 

It  would  be  tedious,  and  it  is  unnecessary,  to  trace  the 
details  of  the  negotiations.  There  was  proposal  and  feigned 
withdrawal,  there  was  counter-proposal  and  debate  :  but  at 
last  the  bargain  was  struck. 

"  As  it  hath  pleased  the  king  of  his  most  virtuous  and 
godly  disposition  not  only  to  freely  grant  to  the  city  certain 
places  for  the  relief  of  the  poor,"  but  also  to  restore  part  of 
their  endowment,  the  city  agrees  to  be  responsible  for  any 
deficiency  caused  by  circumstances. 

Finally,  on  27th  December,  1546,  there  was  presented  to 


112     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

the  city  for  signature  a  preliminary  deed  of  covenant,  by 
which,  in  all  the  obscurity  of  legal  jargon,  Henry  VIII 
agreed  to  grant  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital  to  the  mayor 
and  corporation.  And  to  this  covenant  is  tacked  on,  as 
if  by  an  afterthought  about  so  trivial  a  matter,  a  grant  of 
Bethlem  : — 

"  And  the  king  further  granted  that  the  said  mayor,  com- 
monalty, and  citizens  and  their  successors  should  be  masters 
and  governors  of  the  house  or  hospital  called  Bethlem,  and 
should  have  the  order,  rule,  and  government  of  the  hospital 
and  of  the  people  there,  and  should  have  full  authority  to 
cause  the  revenues  of  the  lands  and  possessions  of  the 
hospital  to  be  employed  for  the  benefit  of  the  poor  people 
there,  according  to  the  true  meaning  of  the  foundation,  or 
otherwise,  as  it  should  please  the  king." 

It  is  certain  from  the  action  of  succeeding  monarchs  that 
this  document  was  interpreted  as  reserving  to  the  king  the 
freehold  of  the  hospital  and  the  rights  of  visitation  and 
reform. 

Some  seventeen  days  before  he  died,  that  is  on  13th 
January,  1547,  Henry  VIII  signed  the  letter  patent  which 
ratified  the  deed  of  covenant :  this  is  the  charter  of  the  second 
foundation. 

Two  or  three  years  afterwards  Sir  Martin  Bowes  (mayor, 
1545)  was  paid  ^113  6s.  8d.  (about  £1,700  at  the  present 
value  of  money)  for  the  purchase  of  the  patronage  of  Bethlem 
with  all  the  lands  and  tenements  thereto  belonging.  Pre- 
sumably, this  was  by  way  of  reimbursement,  and  the 
purchase-money  may  have  been  raised  out  of  the  hospital 
revenues.  However,  according  to  Stow,  Stephen  Jennings 
(mayor,  1508)  left  £^0  in  his  will  of  1523  towards  the 
"  purchase  of  the  patronage "  of  Bethlem  from  the  king. 
Sir  Martin,  the  goldsmith,  was  a  great  dealer  in  church 
property.  What  was  his  charge  in  this  deal  for  brokerage  ? 
I  rather  suspect  him  of  taking  away  from  our  cloister  a 
"  brass  laver,  eighteen  feet  in  length,"  into  which  leaden  pipes 
poured  water. 

One  hundred  and  thirteen  pounds  six  shillings  and  eight- 


SIR    MARTIN    BOWES. 

(By  pcniiission  of  flic  Goldsmiths'  Company.) 


To  face  p.  112. 


RE-FOUNDED 


113 


pence  then  was  our  ransom,  and  it  was  paid  to  a  brigand — ■ 
whether  he  was  king  or  courtier. 

In  1547 — to  be  frank — the  city  bought  back  the  "custody 
and  patronage"  of  the  hospital  which  she  had  already 
acquired  in   1346  in  legal  form  and  on  equitable  terms. 

It  is  the  generosity  of  a  brigand  to  permit  his  victim  to 
buy  back  his  own  property. 


/ 


CHAPTER   XIV 

THE  VINEYARD   OF   NABOTH  AT  CHARING 

CROSS 

Two  years  before  the  death  of  Henry  VHI  and  the  grant 
of  the  royal  charter,  the  master  of  Bethlehem  Hospital  signed 
his  name  to  a  piece  of  parchment,  which  is  still  in  the 
keeping  of  Mr.  Worsfold  at  Bridewell.  It  is  a  document  of 
great  importance,  for  it  is  the  original  lease  of  7th  February, 
1545,  by  which  Sir  Peter  Mewtys  demised  the  "  Stone  House 
and  its  appurtenances,  recently  converted  into  three  tene- 
ments "  to  Thomas  Wood,  yeoman,  and  Joan,  his  wife,  for 
a  term  of  ninety-nine  years  at  a  rental  of  ^3  per  annum. 
This  Stone  House  and  its  appurtenances — if  the  argument  of 
the  eighth  chapter  stands  unchallenged — comprised  the  whole 
of  what  w^e  call  Trafalgar  Square  to-day,  and  had  been  "  parcel 
of  the  possessions  of  the  hospital  "  since  a  date  ranging  between 
1377  and  1403.  It  is  worthy  of  remark  that  the  lease  of 
Mewtys  recites  the  terms  of  an  earlier  grant  to  the  same 
parties  on  ist  January,  1536,  by  the  previous  master,  George 
Boleyn,  Viscount  Rochford,  for  it  therefore  follows 
that  the  words  "  recently  converted  into  three  tenements  " 
apply  to  a  date  previous  to  1536.  Now  in  1534  Henry  VIII 
converted  the  mews  at  Charing  Cross,  where  in  earlier 
reigns  the  king's  falcons  used  to  moult  their  feathers,  into 
royal  stables.  Henry  VIII,  no  doubt,  was  the  real 
master  of  Bethlehem  Hospital  and  of  all  its  lands  and 
houses,  whether  there  had  been  any  technical  surrender  or 
not.     But  there  is  no  reason — according   to  the  statements 

made  by  counsel  in  164S — to  believe  that  the  Stone  House 

114 


THE    PROCESSION    OF    EDWARD   VI    PASSING    CHARING   CROSS 

ON    ITS  WAY   TO    WESTMINSTER   HALL,  ON  THE  DAY    BEFORE 

HIS   CORONATION,    IN    1547- 


To  face  p.  114. 


THE    VINEYARD   OF  NABOTH  ii^ 

estate  was  ever  part  of  the  royal  mews,  or  that  any  sovereign 
had  any  legal  right  to  give  away  the  property  of  the 
hospital.  It  is  not  unlikely,  however,  that  the  rebuilding  of 
the  mews  in  1534  suggested  the  development  of  the  Stone 
House  estate.  The  houses  built  served  as  residences  for 
royal  servants,  and  Mewtys  no  doubt  exacted  the  fine, 
which  belonged  to  him  as  master. 

With  the  reversion  of  the  hospital  to  the  city  of  London, 
the  Stone  House  estate  passed  from  the  long  purse  of 
Mewtys  into  the  lean  coffers  of  the  charity.  Unfortunately 
Bethlem  had  been  a  religious  foundation,  and  the  Pro- 
testant brigands  in  the  court  of  Edward  VI  began  to  look 
upon  it  as  Ahab  and  Jezebel  looked  upon  the  vineyard  of 
Naboth.  In  the  general  scramble  for  chantry  bequests  and 
monastic  lands  one  of  the  under-tenants  at  Charing  Cross 
(John  Golightly,  serjeant  farrier  to  Henry  VIII),  secured  from 
Edward  VI  on  26th  June,  1551,  a  lease  of  a  "  piece  of  land 
containing  in  length  from  north  to  south  one  hundred  and 
forty-six  feet,  and  in  breadth  from  east  to  west  one  hundred 
and  twenty-two  feet."  Now,  if  we  turn  to  a  survey  of  the 
Charing  Cross  estate  (p.  116),  attached  to  a  lease  granted 
by  Bethlem  in  1649,  we  shall  find  on  measuring  it  that  these 
figures  give  us,  approximately,  what  I  may  call  the 
"  Chequer  "  inn  block  on  the  east,  and  part  of  the  hatched 
area  westward  together  with  the  hinterland.  Golightly's 
house  was  in  the  shaded  area,  and  he  held  a  lease  of  it  under 
Wood,  our  lessee.  But  he  also  managed  (it  would  appear) 
to  get  a  lease  of  the  "  Chequer "  block  on  the  pretext  that 
it  had  been  "purchased  by  Henry  VIII,"  and  was  part  of 
his  stables.  This  block  must,  I  think,  have  been  one  of  the 
three  tenements  into  which  the  "  Stone  House "  had  been 
converted.  We  shall  find  a  little  later  on  that  one  of  the 
three  has  unaccountably  disappeared.  I  have  no  doubt  that 
the  hospital  lost  it,  not  because  it  was  purchased  by 
Henry  VIII,  but  because  the  policy  of  Edward  VI  and  his 
ministers  encouraged  raids  on  conventual  endowments. 
However,  Golightly  had  to  share  his  spoils  with  others,  for 
six  years  later,  on   29th  May,   155^ — when  the  see-saw  had 


THE    VINEYARD   OF  NABOTH  it; 

displaced  Geneva  in  favour  of  Rome — two  speculators  in 
Church  property  purchased  the  reversion  of  the  ground 
leased  to  Golightly.  The  grant  of  Philip  and  Mary,  by  the 
by,  speaks  of  a  "  messuage  newly  built  upon  it."  Golightly's 
house  had  certainly  been  his  residence  since  1554,  and  I  am 
inclined,  therefore,  to  argue  that  the  "  messuage  newly  built " 
was  the  "Chequer"  inn.  In  any  case  the  "Chequer"  was 
in  existence  in  the  days  of  Edward  VI  or  Mary,  accord- 
ing to  the  tenor  of  the  evidence  given  by  Golightly's 
daughter  in  a  lawsuit  of  1601.  Golightly  evidently  came 
to  terms  about  his  own  house  with  the  intruders,  but  the 
"Chequer"  block  seems  to  have  stuck  to  the  fingers  of 
Reeve  and  Rotsey,  or  others,  with,  or  without,  the  consent 
of  the  hospital  and  its  lessee. 

It  is  evident,  at  any  rate,  that  the  three  tenements  in- 
cluded in  the  lease  to  Wood  had  shrunk  to  two  by  the 
November  of  1554,  when  Wood  made  his  will  : — 

"  I  give  and  bequeath  to  my  wife  all  that  my  lease  of 
two  tenements  in  the  parish  of  St.  Martin,  Charing  Cross  : 
the  one  in  the  tenure  and  occupation  of  John  Golightly,  as  also 
the  other,  in  which  I  now  dwell,  which  tenements  I  have 
of  the  lease  made  unto  me  by  the  late  master  of  the  hospital 
of  Our  Blessed  Lady  of  Bethlem  without  Bishopsgate, 
London." 

In  the  November  of  1557,  the  year  in  which  the  specu- 
lators purchased  their  reversion,  the  maker  of  this  will  said 
goodbye  to  his  "  Hvery  coat,"  and  handed  over  to  his  base- 
born  son  a  "  debenture  "  of  £10  signed  by  Queen  Mary  for 
salary  unpaid.  The  ground  was  "  broken "  for  the  old 
churchwarden — so  we  read  in  the  accounts  of  the  wardens 
— in  the  church  of  St.  Martin-in-the-Fields.  His  knell  was 
rung,  and  the  wax  of  his  funeral  tapers  guttered  in  the 
wind.  But  before  he  died  he  leased  to  Golightly  his  house 
and  stables,  also  making  him  trustee  of  the  Stone  House 
estate  for  the  benefit  of  his  son,  during  his  minority. 

Darken  the  stage:  burn  a  little  lurid  fire  :  and  let  the  music 
wail  and  rumble  :  for  John  Golightly  faces  the  footlights, 
the  arch-villain  of  the  play.     In  the  following  year — the  last 


ii8     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

of  his  life — he  proceeded  to  encroach  upon  the  "  possessions 
of  the  hospital,"  pulling  down  palings  and  other  boundaries 
— alas !  without  any  interference  on  the  part  of  the 
governors.  His  example  was  the  signal  for  a  successful 
campaign  of  misrepresentation  and  brigandage,  which  was 
engineered  against  Naboth  and  his  vineyard  by  informers, 
unscrupulous  squatters,  and  other  "  men  of  Belial."  The 
campaign  was  heralded  by  a  cry  of  "  concealed  lands."  Now 
concealed  lands  were  monastic  or  chantry  lands,  which 
should  have  been,  but  were  not,  surrendered  to  Henry  VHI 
or  Edward  VI.  It  was  a  favourite  device  of  speculative 
attorneys  and  other  professional  informers  in  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth  and  James  I  to  hunt  up  such  lands  and  to  buy 
them  from  the  crown.  Believe  me,  the  informer  emerged 
from  these  transactions  not  unprofitably. 

I  have  found  in  the  Record  Office  the  royal  grants 
upon  which  Ahab,  and  Jezebel,  and  the  false  witnesses  who 
rose  up  against  us,  relied  for  proof  of  their  title.  The 
first  is  a  grant  by  EHzabeth,  dated  7th  August,  1568,  to 
Hugh  Councell  and  Robert  Pistor  of  two  strips  of  land  at 
Charing  Cross,  on  the  pretext  that  they  were  concealed 
lands  and  belonged  to  the  queen.  These  two  speculators, 
who,  by  the  by,  were  operating  all  over  England,  sold  their 
grants  to  the  widow  of  Golightly.  The  second  is  a  grant 
made  to  Thomas  and  Elizabeth  Garland  by  James  I  on 
22nd  December,  1608,  and  it  certainly  closes  every  legal 
loophole  against  any  one  who  set  out  to  impugn  its  justice  or 
validity.  However,  amid  vast  oceans  of  legal  jargon — for 
which  Thomas  and  Elizabeth  had,  I  hope,  to  pay  hand- 
somely— islands  occasionally  emerge  in  the  shape  of  boun- 
daries and  measurements.  They  serve  to  identify  two  vacant 
strips  of  ground  in  "  Trafalgar  Square,"  which  I  have  marked 
as  A  and  B  in  the  survey.  The  road  in  front  of  the  National 
Gallery  may  be  accepted  as  representing  the  former  strip, 
which  at  one  point  touched  an  "  orchard."  The  other  piece 
of  debateable  land  bordered  the  western  side  of  the  Square, 
where  the  Union  Club  and  the  College  of  Physicians  now 
frigidly  turn  their  backs  on  one  another. 


THE    VINEYARD   OF  NABOTH  119 

In  1644  the  original  lease  of  the  Stone  House  and  its 
appurtenances  expired,  and  the  governors  found — apparently 
to  their  profound  astonishment — that  every  one  of  their 
tenants  questioned  the  title  of  the  hospital.  They  were, 
therefore,  obliged  to  institute  a  suit  in  chancery,  which  was 
afterwards  abandoned  in  favour  of  arbitration.  In  the 
archives  of  Bridewell  I  found  the  case  of  the  governors,  as 
it  was  prepared  for  counsel  employed  in  this  suit.  It 
appears  therefrom  that  they  only  had — as  we  still  have — 
the  original  lease  and  the  will  of  yeoman  Wood,  while  the 
defendants  were  fortified  with  grants  from  Edward  VI, 
Mary,  Elizabeth,  and  James  I,  and  also  professed  to  possess 
decisive  surveys  of  the  estate  as  held  by  Wood  in  1545.  No 
doubt,  as  the  governors  justly  contended,  these  royal  grants 
were  procured  by  fraud  and  misrepresentation,  and  ought, 
therefore,  to  be  set  aside  by  the  court.  It  is  very  difficult, 
however,  to  evict  even  trespassers,  if  they  have  occupied 
their  holdings  without  interference  for  fifty  years,  and 
perhaps  the  hospital  was  lucky  to  save  more  than  half  of 
its  Naboth's  vineyard  at  Charing  Cross.  A  glance  at  the 
plan  of  1649  will  show  what  we  kept  and  what  we  lost  in 
the  seventeenth  century,  but  I  can  illustrate  the  success  of  the 
speculators  and  informers  in  figures  of  hard  cash.  In  1830 
our  holding  in  "  Trafalgar  Square "  was  valued  by  the 
government  at  ^^38,000.  If  we  had  not  lost  the  site  of  the 
"Chequer"  inn  and  the  areas  indicated  in  the  survey  by 
the  letters  A  and  B,  we  should  have  started  with  another 
;^30,ooo  in  our  pockets — as  compensation  for  disturbance — 
to  buy  a  still  larger  estate  in  Piccadilly. 

A  literary  necromancer,  I  have  managed  to  raise  the  dead 
even  in  the  Augmentation  Office,  and  to  give  the  breath  of 
life  to  the  bleaching  bones  in  the  valley  of  Bridewell.  In  the 
exercise  of  my  powers  I  am  now  going  to  show  my  readers 
the  "  Chequer  "  inn,  from  which,  in  the  days  of  Charles  I,  the 
carrier  started  for  Blandford,  and  the  houses  in  which  the 
conspiracy  was  hatched  against  the  "  mayor,  commonalty, 
and  citizens  of  London,"  who  slept  while  the  enemy  sowed 
tares. 


I20     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

Here  is  a  picture  of  Charing  Cross  very  much  as  it  looked 
to  Christiana  Golightly,  Robert  Pistor,  the  informer,  Anthony 
Reeve,  the  speculator  in  real  estate,  and  others  of  my  puppets. 
It  was  drawn  by  Ralph  Agas  about  the  year  1560,  when 
Elizabeth  had  been  reigning  two  years. 

At  the  corner  of  St.  Martin's  Lane  and  Charing  Cross — 
to-day  Havelock  stands  on  the  site  to  plead  for  generosity 
to  the  soldier — stands  a  large,  roomy  house.     This,  reader,  is 


CHARING  CROSS  IN   THE  YEAR    I560. 


the  "Chequer"  inn,  but  you  must  think  of  it  as  well  in  front 
of  the  statue,  and  as  facing  the  gateway  of  Northumberland 
House  on  the  ground  now  covered  by  Northumberland 
Avenue. 

Now  we  may  steer  our  way  across  the  Square  to  Nelson's 
Column  and  its  guardian  lions.  To  the  left  of  the  "  Chequer" 
inn,  just  behind  the  Cross,  you  will  notice  a  passage  some 
five  feet  wide  ;  this  passage,  which  was  known  as  "  Checker 
Yard,"  even  after  the  "  Chequer  "  had  turned  into  the  "  Coach 


THE    VINEYARD    OF  NABOTH  121 

and  Horses,"  escaped  the  greed  of  the  raiders.  Further 
west  is  the  house  of  John  Golightly,  arch-conspirator  against 
the  hospital :  let  the  lion  at  the  south-east  corner  of  the 
pedestal  commemorate  his  monumental  iniquity.  The  next 
building  in  the  illustration — as  I  gather  from  the  brief  for 
counsel — is  not  a  house,  but  a  wall  with  a  door  opening  into 
the  background  of  the  next  tenement,  occupied  in  the  time 
of  Agas  by  the  widow  and  son  of  Thomas  Wood.  The 
lion  at  the  south-west  corner  may  be  said  to  indicate  with 
his  paw  the  site  of  the  house  of  Wood,  yeoman  of  the 
royal  stables,  with  its  "  garnish  "  of  pewter  plates,  its  cruises, 
and  apostle-spoons.  Beyond  this  tenement  of  Wood  was 
a  brick  wall  linking  it  to  the  royal  barn.  Through  a  door 
in  this  wall  Wood  used  to  drive  his  horses  into  a  yard. 
After  1702,  but  not  before  1702 — so  far  as  I  can  judge 
by  our  leases  and  Hatton's  "  New  View  of  London " — a 
famous  coaching  inn,  the  "  Golden  Cross,"  arose  on  the  site 
of  this  yard  and  stables. 

So  much  for  the  frontage  in  the  plan  of  Agas,  which,  I 
think,    must    have   been    in    advance   of    the    pavement   of 
Trafalgar  Square.     Let  us  now  explore  the  territory  in  the 
background  of  the  survey.     In    it   we   have  the  "appurte- 
nances" of  the   Stone  House,  or  its  three  tenements  men- 
tioned in  the  original  lease.     These  appurtenances  include — 
happily  the  statues  of  heroes  cannot  shiver,  or  sniff — stables, 
cow-houses,  a  coal-room,  or    other    offices  :  they  form  (you 
will  observe)  a  right  angle  to  a  "  mud   wall  "  in  the  map. 
Disregard    the   word  "  mews "   unless  you    are   a   champion 
of    Golightly   and    Garland,    for    the    mews    were    on    the 
other    side    of   the    northern    wall    (the    "  king's    granary ") 
and    of    the    western    wall     (the     "  king's     barn ").      Con- 
centrate  your   attention    on    the    many-angled    little   build- 
ing,  hooded   with   a   kind    of  cupola :    it   lies   full    between 
the  word  "mewes"   and  what  looks  like  a  drinking-trough 
for  horses.     In  the  leases,  grants,  and  brief  it    is  described 
as   the   "  conduit-head "   from    which   water   was    carried   in 
pipes   "  to    Whitehall    palace    and    elsewhere."      I    have   no 
doubt  that  this  was  part  of  the  "  conduit "  which,  accord- 


122     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

ing  to  Stow,  brought  water  from  Paddington  to  Corn- 
hill  via  the  "  mewsgate "  after  1236:  even  in  1613  it  is 
described  as  the  "  city's  great  pipe."  This  "  conduit-head  " 
comprised  a  red-brick  chamber  with  mediaeval  groining, 
which  served  as  a  reservoir  for  the  water.  It  was  destroyed 
in  1 83 1  in  the  laying  out  of  Trafalgar  Square:  even  anti- 
quaries only  know  it  under  the  name  of  "  Queen  Elizabeth's 
bath."  North  of  this  is  a  garden  with  a  solitary  bay-tree  : 
laurelled  heroes  have  long  since  stripped  it  of  its  leaves. 

Places  as  well  as  patients  may  be  the  victims  of  heredity. 
"  Trafalgar  Square,"  when  it  was  ours,  was  the  scene  of  a 
great  protest  against  encroachments.  And  ever  since  it 
passed  out  of  our  hands,  reformers  and  agitators  have  been 
protesting  against  encroachments  on  liberty  and  justice. 


CHAPTER   XV 

OUR  SISTER,   BRIDEWELL 

At  the  Reformation  everything  was  thrown  into  the  melting- 
pot,  and  all  the  old  moulds  were  broken  up.  In  common 
with  the  rest  of  England,  London  had  to  remould  her 
ancient  institutions.  To  the  task  of  reconstructing  the 
"  royal  hospitals  "  she  devoted  herself  during  the  latter  half 
of  the  sixteenth  century. 

I  do  not  propose  to  trace  the  evolution — it  was  a  gradual 
and  complicated  process — of  the  present  form  of  their  govern- 
ment. I  will,  however,  indicate  some  of  the  early  moulds 
into  which  Bethlem,  still  fluid,  was  poured. 

From  1547  to  1556  the  court  of  aldermen  appear  to  have 
administered  the  hospital  directly  through  the  "  keeper "  of 
the  house,  who  was  ordered  to  submit  his  accounts  to  the 
chamberlain  of  the  city.  But  during  1556  and  part  of  1557 
Bethlem  was  transferred  to  the  governors  of  Christ's  Hospital, 
who  were,  of  course,  also  aldermen  and  commoners  of  the 
corporation.  No  doubt  these  governors — with  so  many 
children  to  maintain  and  educate — found  it  impossible  to 
spare  sufficient  time  and  attention  to  a  hospital  of  so  dif- 
ferent a  character.  At  any  rate  on  27th  September,  1557, 
another  mould  was  found  for  Bethlem,  and  it  was  finally 
placed  under  the  management  of  Bridewell.  The  court  of 
Bridewell  Hospital  appointed  three  "  surveyors  of  Bethlem  " 
to  act  as  a  sort  of  house-committee,  but  the  same  court  and 
counting-house  served  for  both  hospitals.  Our  younger  sister 
is  a  managing  woman,  and  still  manages  for  us. 

The  future  maintenance  of  the  royal  hospitals  was  a  more 

123 


124     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

difficult  problem  than  their  government.  Four  of  them  had 
been  plundered  and  held  to  ransom  by  king  and  courtier: 
the  houses  which  contributed  to  the  revenues  of  all  had  been 
allowed  to  fall  into  decay :  the  soul  of  charity  had  been  torn 
from  the  body  which  it  had  animated  so  long.  But  the  city 
had  pledged  herself  to  nurse  their  estates  into  prosperity,  and 
meanwhile  to  raise  money  for  immediate  needs. 

Accordingly  in  1557  a  sort  of  poor-rate  was  levied  on  each 
citizen  :  next  year  the  city  companies  were  assessed,  and  the 
pulpit  was  enlisted  in  the  campaign. 

In  the  case  of  Bethlem  a  proctor  was  despatched — as  in 
mediaeval  days — on  a  begging  errand  to  Cambridge,  Ely,  and 
Lincoln,  and  collections  w^ere  made  by  royal  authority  in  all 
the  churches  of  England  and  Wales.    A  specimen  of  a  "brief" 


,  e  aftnotonebngoaa  S)euoitfeanD  fa?ttjfm  people  tDat 
tijere  tjatt)  b?ne  anDis  tctctefte  fonre  J^oflTpitala:  InanD 
auoute  m  cpti e  of  Hontion,  xw  is  to  itit  ti)c  one  (s  fbz  t^e 
poozc  people  tt)at  be  ftcpkeac  Dp  f  l)e  ^anOe  of  <0OD  famt  be 
ftraugfttfrom  tDecetnpttes  tt)uCc  be  fee ptc  $  m aj>nteno  m 
t^e  i^ofpitaiof  ont  2.abpe  of  26tDDeleinbmple  000  caule 
t^rm  to  Dismanpoj  tottjcncpttesagapne. 


{From  a  brief  issued  by  Elizabeth  in  behalf  of  Bethlehem  Hospital  and  other  objects  of  charity.) 

conferring  the  royal  authority  on  the  proctor  may  still  be 
inspected  at  the  British  Museum  :  half  a  dozen  lines  are 
appended  in  the  form  of  an  illustration. 

"  Be  it  known  to  all  devout  and  faithful  people  that  there 
have  been  erected  in  the  city  of  London  four  hospitals  for 
the  poor  people  that  be  stricken  by  the  hand  of  God.  Some 
be  distraught  from  their  wits  :  these  be  kept  and  maintained 
in  the  Hospital  of  Our  Lady  of  Beddelem,  until  God  call 
them  to  His  mercy,  or  to  their  wits  again." 

"  Our  Lady  of  Beddelem  "  was,  it  is  true,  supposed  to 
share  the  purse  of  Bridewell,  but  unfortunately  St.  Thomas's 
Hospital  had  been  enriched  at  the  expense  of  Bridewell, 
which  was  reduced  to  great  straits  during  the  close  of  the 
sixteenth    century.     The    work    of  our   house    suffered   pro- 


LIEUT.-COL.   A.   J.    COPELAND,    F.S.A. 

Treasurer,  and  author  of  "  Bridewell  Royal  Hospital,  Past  and  Present,"  li 


To  face  p.  124. 


OUR   SISTER,   BRIDEWELL  125 

portionately,  and  was  indeed  conducted  on  a  very  meagre 
scale  throughout  the  reign  of  Elizabeth. 

The  earliest  court  books  of  Bridewell  Hospital  cover  in 
part  the  period  of  this  chapter,  and  I  shall  draw  upon  them 
for  information  and  illustration.  They  begin  in  1559  (six 
years  after  the  foundation  of  Bridewell),  but  unfortunately 
the  volumes  are  missing  between  1562  and  1574,  between 
1579  and  1597,  and  between  1610  and  1617.  Probably  they 
disappeared  in  the  confusion  attending  their  removal  to 
Hammersmith  at  the  time  when  the  Great  Fire  swept 
through   the   old    palace   of  Bridewell. 

The  court  books  were  intelligently  studied  and  thoroughly 
digested  by  Mr.  F.  O.  Martin  for  the  Report  which  he  wrote 
for  the  Charity  Commissioners  of  1837.  He  was  the  first  to 
investigate  along  with  our  archives  such  original  authorities 
as  were  then  available,  and  his  conclusions,  so  far  as  they 
relate  to  Bethlem,  are  on  the  whole  as  accurate  as  they  are 
exhaustive.  It  was  left,  however,  for  Lt.-Col.  A.  J.  Cope- 
land,  F.S.A.,  treasurer  of  the  two  hospitals,  to  make  a 
precis  in  chronological  order  of  all  that  seemed  to  him  of 
value  or  interest  in  the  minutes  of  the  court  from  the 
sixteenth  to  the  nineteenth  century.  Without  these  tran- 
scripts I  should  never,  I  fear,  have  mastered  the  handwriting 
of  the  Elizabethan  clerk,  in  which  the  early  minutes  are 
written. 

The  treasurer  has  printed  various  studies  of  his  in  the 
history  of  Bridewell  and  Bethlem  ;  and  indeed  it  was  after 
reading  two  papers  of  his  in  our  magazine — twenty  years  ago 
— that  I  began  to  collect  materials  for  a  literary  monument 
to  our  house  and  its  work. 

The  future  historian  of  Bridewell  must  put  on  his  sewer- 
boots  before  he  wades  through  the  filth  of  its  police  records, 
but  he  will  find  many  things  worth  picking  up  and  washing. 

For  instance,  the  first  volume  appears  to  be  in  the  hand- 
writing or  to  have  been  written  under  the  direction  of 
Richard  Grafton,  who  was  one  of  the  "  masters  "  of  Bride- 
well, and  certainly  superintended  the  daily  whippings  of  that 
court  of  morality.     He  was  one  of  the  wealthy  merchants 


126     THE    STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

who  turned  the  day  in  favour  of  Protestantism,  for  he  printed 
in  the  English  language  the  "  Great  Bible  "  of  Cranmer  and 
the  first  Prayer  Book  of  Edward  VI,  of  which  I  reproduce 
the  title-page.  He  was  also  a  compiler  of  the  chronicles 
of  England,  but  it  was  dangerous  to  mention  his  name  or  his 
work  in  the  hearing  of  worthy  old  Stow,  also  a  chronicler. 

The  missing  volumes  of  the  minutes  probably  contained 
references  to  the  tortures  undoubtedly  inflicted  in  Bridewell 
on  political  and  religious  offenders.  And  I  mention  here  the 
curious  fact  that  the  first  congregational  church  in  England 
grew  out  of  the  rigorous  treatment — fatal  to  four  of  its 
founders — of  some  conscientious  dissenters  in  the  Bridewell 
of  1567. 

Such  court  books  as  survive — they  only  relate  to  eleven 
years — will  help  some  student  hereafter  to  add  to  his  direc- 
tory of  London  in  the  sixteenth  century.  Numbers  of  streets 
and  courts  and  taverns  are  mentioned  by  name,  and  some  of 
the  signs  of  the  taverns  explain  the  origin  of  present-day 
names  of  courts.  In  the  reign  of  Elizabeth  there  was  the 
"  Hanging  Sword  "  and  the  "  Popingay."  To-day  the  thirsty 
journalist  of  Fleet  Street  searches  Hanging  Sword  Alley  in 
vain,  but  "  Poppins  Court,"  if  it  has  lost  a  "  Popingay,"  still 
possesses  a  "  Red  Lion." 

But  there  are  all  sorts  of  allusions  to  the  manners  and 
customs  of  the  age.  The  prodigal  apprentice  dices  and 
dances  half  the  night;  and  takes  his  pleasure  in  the  day 
at  his  master's  expense  by  riding  to  Beddington,  or  Stour- 
bridge Fair,  near  Cambridge.  The  counterfeit  cripple  stands 
in  front  of  the  preacher  at  Paul's  Cross  with  his  crutch,  and 
the  bigamist  does  penance  in  the  church  in  a  white  sheet.  A 
pair  of  gloves  or  a  venison  pasty  are  gifts  proper  to  Valen- 
tine's Day,  and  the  summer-houses,  which  citizens  are  building 
in  Moorfields,  too  often  shelter  lovers. 

The  Puritanism  of  the  city  is  very  marked  in  the  court 
books.  Private  houses  as  well  as  streets  and  taverns  are 
searched  and  offenders  against  morality  arrested,  by  constable 
and  watch — often  on  the  information  of  a  neighbour.  The 
"  night  walker  "  is  carted  round  the  town — after  whipping — 


•Z;^ 


TITLE-PAGE   OF   PRAYER   BOOK   PRINTED   BY   RICHARD   GRAFTON. 

Notice  below  the  rebus  on  Grafton's  name — a  graft  and  a  ton. 


127 


128     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM   HOSPITAL 

to  the  music  of  basins  :  the  gentleman  has  to  repair  thirty 
feet  of  Bridewell  wharf,  or  to  give  so  much  cloth  out  of  his 
"  benevolence  "  for  the  use  of  the  poor. 

Bethlem  has  always  been  the  Cinderella  among  her  dis- 
dainful sister  hospitals,  and  the  court  books  of  this  date  do 
not  condescend  to  pay  much  attention  to  her  house  or  her 
people.  I  have,  however,  after  peeping  into  every  page  of  the 
records,  found  here  and  there  some  fragments  of  her  history. 

In  1574  a  man  was  charged  at  Bridewell  with  sending  his 
wife  to  Bethlem  without  cause.  She  complained  that  for  six 
weeks  previous  to  her  committal  she  had  been  tied  down  in 
bed  by  her  husband  and  another  woman  till  she  was  "  well 
nigh  famished."  In  another  entry  the  wisdom  of  Solomon  is 
eclipsed.  The  court  of  Bridewell  was  troubled  with  a  woman 
who  "  seemed  to  be  mad  "  and  yet  was  a  rogue,  and  so  she 
was  first  whipped,  and  then  sent  to  Bedlem  ! 

In  a  succeeding  chapter  I  shall  deal  with  the  rogues  of 
both  sexes  (the  Toms  and  Besses  of  Bedlam)  who  feigned 
^  insanity  to  escape  whipping  and  the  mill  at  Bridewell^  or  to 
prey  on  the  charitable.  One  of  the  court  books  tells  us  of  a 
clever  rascal  who  was  to  be  found  at  the  "  Griffin,"  Waltham 
Cross.  For  half  a  crown  he  would  forge  you  a  licence  to  beg, 
duly  signed  by  the  treasurer  or  keeper  of  Bethlem  :  it  would 
set  forth  that  you  had  been  for  the  last  two  years  caged  up 
in  Bedlam,  and  that  you  were  authorized  to  beg  for  the 
arrears  of  your  maintenance.  The  governors  do  not  seem  to 
have  ever  issued  any  such  licences. 

In  the  year  1576  we  are  introduced  to  one  John  Mell,  as 
keeper  of  Bedlem.  He  had  been  appointed  by  the  lord 
mayor  and  court  of  aldermen,  but  was  immediately  respon- 
sible to  the  three  "  surveyors  of  Bedlem."  I  am  afraid  that 
he  must  stand  in  the  dock  with  Peter,  the  porter,  Dr.  Crooke, 
/  the  keeper,  Richard  Langley,  the  steward,  and  many  other 
officials  of  the  hospital.  For  he  refused  to  give  any  account 
of  legacies  (^14)  received,  even  discouraged  the  benevolent 
from  giving  at  all,  and  grossly  insulted  the  surveyors.  He 
was  dismissed,  defiant  to  the  last,  but  it  appears  from  the 
burial  register  of  St.  Botolph's,  Bishopsgate,  that  a  few  days 


OUR   SISTER,   BRIDEWELL  129 

before  ist  December,  1579,  death  dismissed  his  appeal  to  the 
court  of  aldermen.  During  his  keepership  the  east  gate, 
which  opened  into  the  street,  was  to  be  closed  at  9  p.m.  or 
10  p.m.,  according  to  the  season,  the  west  gate,  which  led  into 
Moorfields,  an  hour  or  two  earlier. 

Another  story  of  the  court  books  (1579)  helps  us  to  under- 
stand why  the  hospital  has  lost  so  much  of  its  property  by 
the  negligence  or  ignorance  of  its  governors.  One  Wright,  a 
carpenter  (or  builder),  had  managed  through  the  good  offices 
of  his  father-in-law,  the  city  chamberlain,  to  secure  a  garden 
which  belonged  to  Bethlem,  and  had  built  a  "fair  house" 
upon  it.  Our  sleepy  sister — Bridewell — had,  of  course, 
noticed  nothing.  Fortunately,  however,  one  Dr.  Martin  had 
reason  to  believe  that  his  lease  included  this  ground,  and  he 
at  once  appealed  to  the  court  at  Bridewell  not  to  let  their 
"  inheritance  "  slip  through  their  fingers.  He  proposed — 
quite  with  the  approval  of  the  court — to  go  to  law  at  his  own 
expense  to  preserve  his  title  and  their  property ;  and  the 
court  was  good  enough  to  promise  to  have  a  "  talk  wjth 
Wright "  at  the  next  "  view  "  of  their  houses. 

I  had  hoped  to  associate  Dr.  Martin,  or  some  other 
doctor,  with  the  care  of  our  patients,  but  I  find  that  an  old 
woman  was  in  charge  of  the  dispensary.  It  has  been  quite  a 
joy  to  transcribe  an  entry  so  charged  with  unconscious  humour 
as  the  following,  which  is  dated  21st  June,  1578. 

"It  is  granted  that  the  old  woman,  the  wife  of  Davie 
Thomson,  who  hath  given  medicine  to  the  poor  at  Bedlem, 
shall  have  eight  pence  a  week  to  keep  two  frantic  persons  in 
rooms  there  provided :  she  to  find  them  their  diet  and 
medicine.  She  reported  she  had  cured  one  Wm.  Home,  a 
rich  man  from  North  Cray,  and  also  many  others." 

Dear  old  soul !  Probably  your  remedies  owed  more  to 
the  herbs  of  the  field  than  to  the  astrology  of  the  orthodox 
physician  ;  but  you  were  the  only  creature  who  really  cared 
whether  or  not  your  forlorn  prisoners  recovered,  I  hope  that 
the  rich  man  provided  handsomely  for  you  and  Davie. 

Let  me  conclude  by  announcing  a  literary  discovery 
which  I  made  by  collating  items  out  of  the  court  books,  the 

10 


I30     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

muniment  book,  old  leases  at  Bridewell,  and  the  registers  of 
St.  Botolph,  Bishopsgate. 

In  a  Bethlem  rental  of  1555,  one  William  Allen  appears  as 


i'   .^ 


.  T,  ^,,     ,,  \ti   --<>  C  i  ~-^i'  ■X'-i  hif^  -tv  «».- 


'  V  -^^■> 


tij[x  ^^.-i;  .vH  '  <■^-"/-^  ^^&och^U*iM 


,\,-^ 


\  .Wv.:^ 


prrrHVfi^'-'H.r  C;«.»«fu<i  i»  ♦.;■■{  r.' .>^>*  '-f  <*5'-  "?      -•   '-..^  ^ 


tCHt  c~>m-><f'"  *^"*^ "«>-•*'>'■  -'iv^.',  f:.,,*'^:.^^^  v»,  H> 


f  ^  «« -K  t    -i-^^      f  C  ^  . .  ,  -.   .">  vv 


»•  •V.-W*-,'  5    *»       V  <-M -^ 


vt,-^     ^">VW't?'    ^       l^-^^       »■->       ''>    ' 


e 


'  1  <,4  „ .  vn-*  is-'  V  viH'  »>,- ihk  * '>■-■'.*♦• ».  *'• '    ■■•>"• 


A  PAGE   FROM  THE   MUNIMENT  BOOK  AT  BRIDEWELL. 

It  shows  the  rental  of  Bethlem  for  1555. 


one  of  our  tenants,  and  one  Edward  Allen,  also  a  tenant,  as 
"  keeper  of  Bethlem."  I  suspected  that  Edward  Allen  was 
the  father  of  the    famous  actor,  and  two  of  the  old  leases 


OUR    SISTER,   BRIDEWELL  131 

enabled  me  to  prove  it.  On  ist  February,  1559,  the  hospital 
granted  a  lease  of  a  tenement  to  "  Edward  Allen,  citizen  and 
innholder,  and  Margaret  his  wife."  These  words  identify 
them  as  the  parents  of  Edward  Alleyne,  actor,  theatrical 
speculator,  and  founder  of  Dulwich  College  ;  and  William,  in 
that  case,  would  be  his  actor-brother,  or  uncle.  This  house 
was  large  enough  to  be  afterwards  divided  into  three  tene- 
ments, and  may  well  have  been  the  residence  of  Edward 
Allen,  who  had  a  good  deal  of  property  in  Bishopsgate.  It 
is  impossible  to  say  whether  the  great  actor  was  born  in  one 
of  our  houses  in  1 566.  He  is  said  by  Fuller  in  his  "  Worthies  " 
to  have  been  "  born  near  Devonshire  Square,  where  is  now  the 
sign  of  the  pie."  Now,  curiously  enough,  an  Elizabethan  or 
Jacobean  hand  has  noted  in  the  muniment  book  of  a  tene- 
ment adjoining  his  that  it  is  "  Pye's  house."  The  Pyes  were 
a  large  Bishopsgate  family,  and  Michael  Pye  was  a  tenant  of 
ours  in  1600.  His  large  house,  which  faced  what  is  now 
Devonshire  Square,  may  well  have  borne  the  sign  of  the  pie,  or 
magpie.  Allen,  the  father,  and  keeper  of  Bethlem,  died  in 
1570,  and  I  find  that  in  his  will  he  nominated  Hugh  Walker, 
brasier,  his  "  fellow  and  neighbour,"  as  the  "  overseer  "  of  his 
estate.  Now  this  "  Walker,  founder,"  appears  from  one  of 
our  court  books  to  have  had  a  lease  of  the  chapel  before 
1574.  Evidently  he  desecrated  the  chapel  by  using  it  as  a 
foundry.  I  cannot  spare  such  a  sacrilegious  and  illiterate 
knave — he  could  not  even  write  his  own  name,  and  had  to 
attest  his  friend's  will  with  his  mark ! 


CHAPTER   XVI 

*'TOM    O'    BEDLAM" 

The  king's  highway  has  always  had  its  devoted  worshippers, 
who  clung  to  it  for  its  freedom,  its  cheapness,  and  its  changing 
horizons.  But  among  them,  until  a  century  ago,  were  always 
those  who  wandered,  not  because  they  loved  the  road  or  the 
vagrant,  but  because  they  were  driven  along  it  by  forces, 
invisible  yet  irresistible.  These  wanderers  were  mysteries  to 
their  fellows  on  the  road ;  their  minds  worked  in  a  strange, 
fantastic  fashion  :  the  thumb  of  the  potter  seemed  to  have 
given,  as  if  in  sport,  an  ironic  or  humorous  twist  to  the  clay. 

In  the  sixteenth  century  Shakespeare  walked  awhile  in 
their  company,  studied  their  moods,  and  discovered  the 
secret  springs  of  their  actions.  His  language  is  that  of  the 
poet,  but  he  has  accurately  diagnosed  several  types  of  mental 
disease,  as  if  such  a  physician  as  Dr.  Timothy  Bright, 
physician  of  St.  Bartholomew's,  and  author  of  a  book  on 
"Melancholy"  in  1586,  had  taught  him — conceivably  at 
Bethlehem  Hospital — to  classify  them.  I  shall  be  able  to 
demonstrate  the  force  of  my  theory  to  some  of  my  readers  by 
some  quotations  from  "  King  Lear." 

There  is  the  poor  wretch  "  bound  upon  a  wheel  of  fire":  to 
the  alienist  he  is  tormented  by  a  sense  of  inexpiable  guilt — for 
he  is  suffering  from  religious  mania.  Another  is  "  led  by  the 
foul  fiend  through  fire  and  flame,  over  bog  and  quagmire  " ; 
and  "  Flibbertigibbet  mops  and  mows  at  him":  we  who  know 
hear  voices  taunting,  luring,  and  tempting  :  haunting  visions 
scourge  him  forward  on  the  road.  He  has  delusions  of  per- 
secution, and  every  man  seems  his  enemy.     Shakespeare  has 

132 


DELUSIONAL  INSANITY. 


He  wanders  along  the  road,  driven  by  forces  invisible,  yet  irresistible.     The  powers  of 

■darkness  (moon,  bat  and  toad)  seem  leagued  in  hostility  against  him,  and  man  "  whips 

poor  Tom  from  tithing  to  tithing." 


To  face  p.  132. 


'  "  TOM  a  BEDLAM''  133 

also  scientifically  isolated  in  a  group  those  who  have  lost  all 
the  sensibilities  of  humanity.  They  "  eat  the  swimming  frog, 
the  tadpole,  mice  and  rats  " — not  to  mention  more  loathsome 
carrion — and  they  "  drink  the  green  mantle  of  the  standing 
pool  "  ;  and — this  also  is  true  to  life — so  dead  are  such  to 
pain  that  they  have  stuck  pins,  thorns,  and  sprigs  into 
their  "  mortified,  bare  arms."    They  are  the  demented. 

In  the  centuries  past  such  have  been  some  of  the  wayfarers 
on  the  king's  highway — the  victims  of  heredity,  of  sin,  and 
of  circumstances.  But,  though  they  were  what  they  were, 
martyrdom  was  their  portion  on  the  road,  until  mental 
hospitals  were  multiplied  and  reformed. 

Our  Saxon  forefathers  found  on  the  Roman  ridgeway  a 
half-naked  creature — a  clovewort  attached  by  a  red  thread  to 
his  neck — and  they  gave  the  "moon-sick"  a  good  "swingeing 
with  a  whip  of  porpoise  hide." 

^  In  1 561  one  of  the  Egertons  of  Cheshire  was  wandering 
about  the  country  with  beggars  and  drunkards,  and  was 
probably  "  whipped  from  tithing  to  tithing "  :  but  he  pre- 
ferred the  open  road  to  the  chain  and  the  iron  collar  in  castle 
and  court-house. 

In  Cornwall,  even  at  a  later  date,  the  pariah  of  the  road  or 
village  was  made  to  stand  with  his  back  to  a  river,  knocked 
backwards  into  it,  and  ducked,  until  exhaustion  had  taken  all 
the  fighting  and  violence  out  of  him. 

In  Scotland  (as  late  as  1793)  he  was  immersed  in  the  heal- 
ing waters  of  St.  Fillan's  pool,  of  which  Sir  Walter  Scott  has 
sung  in  "  Marmion  "  : — 

'^"Then  to  St.  Fillan's  blessed  well, 

Whose  spring  can  frenzied  dreams  dispel, 
And  the  craz'd  brain  restore." 

Afterwards  he  was  bound  hand  and  foot,  and  left  for  a  night 
in  the  chapel.     If  he  was  found  loose  in  the  morning — and 
still  alive — there  was  good  hope  of  his  full  recovery. 
/  The  allusions  to  chapels,  crosses,  and  religious  processions 
in  the  treatment  of  the  insane  after  the  Reformation  indicate 


> 


v/ 


134     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

that  these  methods  of  treatment  were  as  ancient  as  Christianity 
in  England. 

Sometimes  the  martyrs  of  the  highway  drifted  into  Bedlam, 
and  on  recovery  were  returned  by  carrier  to  their  parish  and 
settlement  with  clothes  and  a  shilling  or  two.  But,  generally 
speaking,  the  road  or  the  prison  was  the  only  hospital  for 
mental  illness. 

The  martyrdom  of  the  wanderer  did  not  cease  till  well 
into  the  nineteenth  century.  Sir  G.  O.  Peele  wrote  to  the 
Home  Secretary  in  1807  of  the  scenes  which  he  had  actually 
witnessed  : — 

"There  is  hardly  a  parish  in  which  may  not  be  found  some 
/  unfortunate  creature,  chained  in  the  cellar  or  garret  of  a 
workhouse,  fastened  to  the  leg  of  a  table,  tied  to  the  post  in 
an  outhouse,  or  perhaps  shut  up  in  an  uninhabited  ruin  ;  or 
sometimes  he  would  be  left  to  ramble  half-naked  or  starved 
through  the  streets  or  highways,  teased  by  the  scoff  and  jest 
of  all  that  is  vulgar,  ignorant,  and  unfeeling." 

This  is  the  tragedy  which  clings  to  our  history  (for  Beth- 
lehem   Hospital   reflected   too  faithfully  the  sentiments   and 
methods  of  the  world  outside)  :    now  for  the  comedy. 
V  "  Tom  o'  Bedlam  "  was  a  rank   impostor  who  had  never 

known  the  inside  of  Bedlam,  although  he  traded  under  its 
name,  and  imitated  the  behaviour  of  its  patients. 

"  I  am  a  lusty  beggar, 
And  I  live  by  others  giving, 

I   scorn  to  work, 

By  the  highway  lurk, 
And  beg  to  get  my  Hving." 

His  note  varied  according  to  circumstances.  Grimed  with 
filth,  a  blanket  about  his  loins,  and  his  hair  in  elfin  knots,  he 
would  present  himself  at  a  lonely  farmhouse  with  a  fierce  and 
distressed  look,  as  just  escaped  from  a  "  sad  and  darksome 
cell."  "  Poor  Tom's  a-cold,"  he  would  hoarsely  mutter  with  a 
glance  at  the  kitchen  fire.  But  in  the  absence  of  her  men  the 
farmer's  wife  was  glad  to  get  rid  of  such  a  suspicious  customer 
at  the  price  of  a  piece  of  cheese  or  bacon. 


"#»(^i 


•j*r- 


A.7C. 


TRADING    ON    INSANITY. 

Tom  o'  Bedlam,  a  bet,'gar  who  pretends  that  he  has  been  in  Bethlehem  Hospital.     In  this 
character  he  made  a  good  deal  of  hay  while  the  sun  shone  for  him,  in  the  si.xteenth  and 

seventeenth  centui^v. 


To  face  p.  134. 


''TOM  a  BEDLAM''  135 

At  a  wake,  fair,  or  market  you  encountered  quite  a  dif- 
ferent Tom  o'  Bedlam — also  an  imitation  of  an  original.  Here 
he  was  the  merriest  of  madcaps,  whooping,  leaping,  gam- 
bolling, decorated  with  ribbons  and  patches,  "  crowned  with 
weeds  and  flowers."  He  had  a  horn  which  proclaimed  his 
arrival,  and  served  to  hold  his  beer :  the  long  staff  on  which 
he  leant  occasionally  reinforced  his  appeals  for  charity. 
Imagine  him — to  give  the  last  touch  to  the  picture — carolling 
with  a  calculated  disregard  of  simple  arithmetic  : — 

"  Of  thirty  years  have  I  twice  twenty  been  engaged, 
And  of  forty  thrice  fifteen  been  caged. 
Oh  !  the  lordly  lofts  of  Bedlam  with  stubble  soft  and  dainty  : 

Brave  bracelets  strong, 

And  whips  ding-dong, 
And  wholesome  hunger  plenty. 
Yet  do  I  sing — any  food,  any  feeding,  drink  or  clothing. 

Come,  dame  or  maid. 

Be  not  afraid  ! 
Poor  Tom  will  injure  nothing." 

In  1566  Tom  o'  Bedlam,  the  "dissembling  knave,"  found 
his  biographer,  Thomas  Harman,  a  country  gentleman  and 
magistrate  who  lived  near  Crayford,  Kent.  All  the  gipsies, 
tramps,  and  other  wayfarers  came  to  beg  or  steal  of  him, 
as  they  drifted  by  in  endless  procession,  and  somehow  or 
another  he  succeeded  in  worming  out  of  them  their  stories, 
their  tricks,  and  the  laws  or  customs  of  their  fraternity. 

Harman  happened  to  be  lodging  in  Whitefriars  one 
November  day  of  1566,  when  he  came  across  the  "Counterfeit 
Cranke" — a  man  who  pretended  that  he  had  been  treated 
in  Bethlehem  for  epilepsy.  The  man's  story  was  that  he 
had  fallen  down  in  a  fit  in  the  "  foul  lane  by  the  water 
side "  [say,  Carmelite  Street],  and  had  "  bled  nearly  all 
the  blood  out  of  his  body."  He  refused,  however,  the  offer 
of  a  basin  of  water  to  cleanse  his  face  and  clothes,  and 
this  made  the  magistrate  suspicious. 

"  Then  I  asked  him  what  his  name  was,  how  long  he 
had  this  disease,  and  what  time  he  had  been  about 
London. 


136     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

"'Sir,'  said  he,  'my  name  is  Nicholas  Jennings,  and  I 
have  had  the  falling  sickness  eight  years,  and  I  have  been 
these  two  years  here  about  London,  and  a  year  and  a  half  in 
Bethlehem.' 

"  '  Why,  wast  thou  out  of  thy  wits  ? '  quoth  I. 

" '  Yes,  sir,  that  I  was.' 
"  What  is  the  name  of  the  keeper  of  the  house  ?  ' 


THE    "COUNTERFEIT    CRANKE "    IN    TWO    CHARACTERS    AND 
DISGUISES,  AS  ORIGINALLY  SKETCHED  AT  BRIDEWELL. 


" '  His  name,'  quoth  he,  '  is  John  Smith.' 
"  '  Then,'  quoth  I,  '  he  must  understand  thy  disease  ! ' 
"  '  Yes  :  not  only  he,  but  all  the  house  beside  :  for  I  came 
thence  but  within  this  fortnight.'" 

Harman,  who  might  have  founded  the  Charity  Organiza- 
tion Society,  at  once  sent  his  servant  to  "  Bethlehem,"  to 
verify  the  statements  of  Nicholas  Jennings. 


"  TOM  a  BEDLAM''  13; 

"  My  servant  returning  to  my  lodgings  did  assure  me 
that  neither  was  there  ever  any  such  man,  neither  yet  any 
keeper  of  any  such  name  ;  but  he  that  was  their  keeper,  he 
sent  me  his  name  in  writing,  affirmeth  that  he  letteth  no 
man  depart  from  him,  unless  he  be  fetched  away  by  his 
friends,  and  that  none  that  came  from  him  beggeth  about 
the  city." 

The  Counterfeit  Crank  put  in  the  rest  of  the  day  begging 
about  the  Temple  with  such  success  that  he  relieved  the 
charitable  of  thirteen  shillings.  He  had  a  bladder  of  blood  "^ 
with  him,  and  in  the  middle  of  the  day  retired  to  the 
"  dirty  lane  at  the  back  of  Clement's  Inn,"  where  he  daubed 
his  face  with  fresh  blood,  and  his  jerkin  and  breeches 
with  mud. 

This  rascal  had  a  "  pretty  house  in  Southwark  well  stuffed         ^- 
with  a  fair  table,  and  a  fair  cupboard  garnished  with  pewter," 
but  two  months  later  he  was  begging  again  in  Whitefriars 
for   money   to   get    a   night's  lodging !     This  time   he   had 
adopted  the  disguise  of  a  hatter  out  of  work. 

"  He  had  on  a  good  black  frieze  coat,  a  new  pair  of 
white  breeches,  a  fine  felt  hat  on  his  head,  and  a  shirt  of 
Flanders  work  worth  six  shillings." 

He  was  arrested  and  removed  to  Bridewell,  where  he  was 
"stripped  stark  naked,  and  his  ugly  attire  put  upon  him 
before  the  masters  thereof,  who  wondered  greatly  at  his  dis-  /^ 
simulation :  for  which  offence  he  stood  in  the  pillory  in 
Cheapside,  both  in  his  ugly  and  in  his  handsome  attire.  And 
after  that  he  went  in  the  mill,  while  his  ugly  face  and  attire 
was  a  drawing ;  and  then  he  was  whipped  at  a  cart's  tail 
through  London,  and  his  displayed  banner  [with  his  name 
and  offence  written  upon  it]  was  carried  before  him  unto  his 
own  door,  and  so  back  to  Bridewell  ;  and  at  length  he  was 
set  at  liberty  on  condition  that  he  would  labour  truly  to  get 
his  living ;  and  his  picture  remaineth  in  Bridewell  for  a 
monument." 

These  "  Toms  of  Bedlam  "  hit  upon  a  very  ingenious  device 
for  securing  credit  for  their  tales  and  a  ready  response  to 
their  appeals    for  charity.     They  put    a   brass    plate    round      <^ 


138     THE    STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

their  arms  with  an  inscription,  or  in  some  cases  even 
branded  their  arms  with  a  mark,  signifying  that  they  were 
licensed  to  beg  by  the  governors  of  Bethlehem  Hospital. 
To  protect  the  public  from  these  impostors,  the  governors 
gave  notice  in  1675  and  1676  that  they  never  sent  discharged 
patients  out  to  beg,  and  that  no  brass  plates,  or  other  marks 
of  any  kind,  were  ever  attached  to  patients  during  their 
residence,  or  on  their  discharge. 


THE   "COUNTERFEIT  CRANKE "   IN  THE   PILLORY. 


N 


No  song  was  once  more  popular  than  "  Tom  of  Bedlam." 
"  Your  best  song  's  '  Thom  o'  Betlem,'  says  one  of  Ben 
Jonson's  characters  in  "  The  Devil  is   an  Ass." 

There  are,  according  to  W.  Chappell,  in  his  "  Old  English 
Popular  Music,"  two  tunes  and  at  least  fifteen  versions  or 
parodies  of  the  song. 

The  earliest  form  of  the  words  of  the  song  appear  in  a 
manuscript  of  1626  (Giles  Earle's  Song  Book),  and  they 
were  printed  with   other  verses  and   parodies  in  "  Le  Prince 


^' TOM  a  BEDLAM''  139 

d'Amour,"  1660.    A  specimen  or  two  of  the  "ingenious  songs 
by  the  wits  of  the  age  "  may  not  prove  unpalatable  : — 

"  From  the  hag  and  hungry  goblin  that  into  rags  would  rend  you, 
And  the  spirits  that  stand  by  the  naked  man  in  the  book  of  moons 

defend  you  : 
That  of  your  five  sound  senses  you  never  be  forsaken, 
Nor  wander  from  yourselves  with  Tom  to  beg  your  bacon. 
While    I    do    sing — any    food,    any    feeding,    feeding,    drink,    and 

clothing. 
Come,  dame  or  maid,  be  not  afraid  :  poor  Tom  will  injure  nothing." 

The  second  version  will  be  more  familiar  to  my  readers, 
associated,  as  it  is,  with  the  deepest  of  basses  and  with  music 
ascribed  to  Purcell. 

"  From  forth  my  sad  and  darksome  cell. 
And  from  the  deep  abyss  of  hell 
Poor  Tom  is  come  to  view  the  world  again, 
To  see  if  he  can  ease  distempered  brain. 
Fear  and  despair  possess  his  soul. 
Hark  how  the  angry  furies  howl  ! " 

Tom  is  accompanied  by  his  Bess  or  Maudlin. 

"To  find  my  Tom  of  Bedlam  ten  thousand  years  I'll  travel. 
Mad  Maudlin  goes  with  dirty  toes  to  save  her  shoes  from  gravel. 
Yet  will    I    sing.  Bonny  boys,  bonny  mad    boys,  Bedlam    boys   are 

bonny. 
They    still   go    bare   and   live    by   the   air,   and  want   no   drink   or 

money." 

The  song  was  often  parodied  by  cavaliers  and  Bohemian 
spirits.    I  offer  you  a  verse  from  "  The  Distracted  Puritan  "  : — 

"  They  have    bound   me   like   a  bedlam  :  they  have   lash'd    my   four 

poor  quarters. 
While   this   I    endure,  faith    makes   me  sure  to   be    one   of    Foxe's 

martyrs. 
Boldly  I   preach,  hate  a  cross,  hate   a   surplice,  mitres,  copes,  and 

rochets. 
Come   hear   me   pray,  nine  times   a   day,  and  fill   your   heads  with 

crotchets." 


t40     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

The  first  tune  is  to  be  found,  according  to  Chappell,  in  a 
manuscript  of  virginal  music,  at  the  time  in  possession  of 
Dr.  Rimbault,  the  date  of  which  is  1666.  The  tune  also 
went  by  the  names  of  "  Fly  Brass  "  and  the  "  Jovial  Tinker." 

The  second  tune  has  been  ascribed  to  tienry  Purcell,  who 
was  born  in  1658.  It  appeared,  however,  eight  years  earlier 
in  "  The  Dancing  Master,"  by  Playford,  and  in  his  "  Anti- 
dotes" (1669).  Indeed,  its  origin  may  be  still  earlier.  It 
appears  that  it  was  used  to  accompany  a  masque  at  Gray's 
Inn,  and  one  of  the  ballads  in  the  masque  is  directed  to  be 
"  sung  to  the  tune  of '  Mad  Tom,'  as  it  was  lately  sung  at  the 
'Curtain'  theatre,  Holywell."  Now  this  theatre  seems  to 
have  been  in  disuse  by   1625. 

So  familiar  and  fantastic  a  figure  on  the  road  as  Tom  o' 
Bedlam  naturally  found  its  way  into  the  sign-boards  of  way- 
side inns.  There  still  exists  an  example  of  such  a  sign  in 
the  village  of  Redbourne,  Herts.  On  one  side  of  a  copper 
plate  you  may  see  "  Tom  in  Bedlam  "  :  he  is  in  a  barred  cell 
with  fetters  round  his  legs.  On  the  reverse  side  is  "Tom  at 
liberty " :  he  is  attired  in  a  gorgeous  red  coat,  blue  knee 
breeches,  and  white  stockings.  With  a  turban  on  his  head 
this  gay  impostor  struts  along  the  road  blowing  his  horn — 
with  an  oration  and  a  collection  at  intervals. 

"  Good  worships,  bestow  your  reward  on  poor  Tom,  who 
hath  been  in  Bedlam  three  years,  four  months,  and  nine  days. 
Well  and  wisely  bestow  one  piece  of  small  silver  towards  the 
fees  of  which  he  is  indebted  ;^3  13s.  7jd.,  and  hath  not  where^ 
with  to  pay  the  same,  save  by  the  help  of  worshipful  and 
well-disposed  people.  God  save  the  king  and  the  governors 
of  Bethlehem  Hospital." 

The  hospital  is  still  waiting  for  his  arrears  ! 


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CHAPTER   XVII 
CINDERELLA    AND    THE    PRINCE 

I  CANNOT  leave  the  mediaeval  hospital  without  casting  some 
"lingering  looks  behind."  Some  relics  of  the  past — the  old 
leases  and  court  books  make  this  clear — survived  even  at  the 
close  of  the  sixteenth  century.  The  refectory  of  the  monks 
seems  to  have  been  converted  long  before  into  tenements  : 
but  the  gateways — east  and  west — were  still  standing  ;  and 
perhaps  the  "  great  house "  which  included  rooms  over  the 
east  gate  might  originally  have  been  the  houses  of  the 
master  and  of  the  secular  clergy.  The  "  great  old  church," 
which  had  been  offered  in  1552  to  the  Parish  Clerks'  Com- 
pany— victims  of  the  Edwardian  pillage — for  their  meetings, 
was  pulled  down  in  1575,  after  serving  as  a  foundry.  In 
a  lease  of  that  year  a  carpenter  and  a  bricklayer  contracted 
to  erect  in  its  place  a  dozen  houses  (two  storeys  high  with  a 
garret  above),  the  old  stone,  timber  and  metal  to  be  used 
up  in  the  new  buildings.  It  was  not  till  1846  that  the 
church  of  1375  was  replaced  by  a  chapel  in  the  dome  of 
the  building  in  Lambeth. 

Another  lease,  granted  to  the  father  of  Edward  Alleyne, 
the  actor,  describes  "  two  gardens  with  a  chapel  enclosed  by 
a  brick  wall  "  as  the  "  old  churchyard."  This  had  been  the 
cemetery  of  the  monks,  patients,  and  tenants  from  the 
foundation  of  Bethlem  in  1247  to  the  dissolution  of  the  mon- 
asteries. In  1569  Sir  Thomas  Roe,  mayor,  caused  an  acre 
of  ground  (the  whole  or  part  of  this  land)  to  be  enclosed  as  a 
burial-place  in  the  city  for  non-parishioners.     Robert  Greene, 

the  repentant  author,  was  buried  here,  and  also  Muggleton, 

,141 


142     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

the  founder  of  the  Muggletonians.  Another  tenant  in  this 
"  God's  acre  "  was  John  Lilburne,  who  was  inevitably  "  agin 
the  government,"  whether  Charles  I  or  Cromwell  was  the 
head  of  it.  Irreverent  wits  suggested  that  even  in  the  grave 
John  Lilburne  might  disturb  the  peace  of  Roman  soldier  and 
mediaeval  friar  by  a  quarrel  with  some  part  of  himself. 

"  Is  John  departed,  and  is  Lilburne  gone  ? 
Farewell  to  Lilburne,  and  farewell  to  John  ; 
But  lay  John  here,  lay  Lilburne  thereabout, 
For  if  they  ever  meet,  they  must  fall  out." 

In  1863  the  North  London  Railway  threw  down  the  brick 
wall,  which  many  still  remember,  and  invaded  the  "  pleasant 
gardens "  which  were  enclosed  within  it,  to  build  Broad 
Street  Station.  Immense  heaps  of  bones  were  carted  away 
in  the  course  of  these  excavations,  but  as  late  as  191 1  the 
engineers  of  the  Tube  on  their  way  to  Liverpool  Street 
Station  bored  into  layers  and  layers  of  skulls  closely  packed  : 
probably  the  victims  of  the  sweating  sickness  or  of  other 
plagues  were  interred  here. 

Another  relic  of  the  original  monastery  was  the  "  old 
house,  where  the  poor  distracted  people  lie."  There  is  some 
reason  for  thinking  that  it  may  have  been  known  as  the 
"  Abraham  Ward,"  the  "  bosom  "  in  which  every  Lazarus — 
no  longer  "  full  of  sores  " — might  find  rest.  At  any  rate,  men 
who  had  pretended  to  have  come  out  of  Bedlam  were  termed 
"Abraham  men,"  as  well  as  "Toms  o'  Bedlam."  This  old 
infirmary  of  the  monks  (for  such  it  was,  I  imagine)  was  a 
long  gallery  with  cells  for  twenty  patients  leading  out  of  it. 
Above  stairs  was  a  long  dormitory — possibly  used  by  the 
monks  as  a  hospice  for  wayfarers.  Here  the  servants  slept, 
but  afterwards  the  unfurnished  part  of  it  was  adapted  by  the 
governors,  who  sanctioned  such  extravagance  with  some  mis- 
giving, for  the  accommodation  of  eight  additional  patients. 

The  transfer  of  the  hospital  from  the  Church  and  the 
king  to  the  corporation  of  London  should  have  stimulated 
the  citizens  to  rebuild  their  ancient  hospital,  and  to  enlarge 


CINDERELLA    AND    THE  PRINCE  143 

its  sphere  of  activities.  But  they  lacked  that  personal  devo- 
tion to  the  sick  which  the  conventual  idea  fostered,  and  were 
quite  content  (penny  wise  and  pound  foolish)  to  farm  it  out 
to  a  keeper  in  part  as  a  private  asylum.  However,  some 
control  was  exercised  over  him  by  three  "  surveyors  "  and  the 
court  of  aldermen. 

Between  1555  and  1619  he  was  allowed  the  use  of  the 
keeper's  house,  and  was  permitted  to  take  private  patients  on 
condition  that  he  received,  at  first  gratuitously,  but  later  at 
a  weekly  charge  of  sixpence  or  sevenpence  a  head,  any 
patients  sent  in  by  Bridewell  ;  these  were  such  as  had  no 
friends  or  means. 

In  these  Spartan  days  half  a  dozen  governors  would  meet 
at  Gresham's  Exchange  at  eight  o'clock  even  on  a  December 
morning  for  a  "  view,"  or  inspection,  of  the  hospital  and  its 
property.  In  the  "View  of  Bethlehem,"  dated  4th  December, 
1598,  there  is  a  list  of  the  twenty  patients  in  residence,  the 
amount  charged  in  each  case,  and  the  name  of  the  parish  or 
person  responsible  for  the  payment  of  the  weekly  fees.  Two 
men  and  four  women,  I  find  on  analysis  of  the  "view,"  had  been 
sent  in  by  Bridewell  and  at  the  expense  of  the  charity,  and 
fourteen  were  private  patients  whose  friends  paid  the  keeper 
from  one  shilling  and  fourpence  to  five  shillings  a  week  for 
them.  A  Dutchman  had  been  in  confinement  four  months, 
a  Spaniard  for  three  years,  and  "  one  of  the  queen's  chapel  " 
for  two  months,  but  Minnie  Barber  had  been  diverting  the 
daily  visitors,  or  robbing  her  neighbours  of  their  sleep,  for 
twenty-five  long  years.  Twenty-five  years  of  the  reign  of 
Elizabeth,  so  crowded  with  life  and  news !  Amongst  those 
who  signed  bonds  for  payment  to  the  farmer-out  of  the 
prisoners  were  benchers  of  Gray's  Inn,  an  official  of  St. 
Bartholomew's  Hospital,  the  Lord  Admiral,  and  the  repre- 
sentatives of  city  companies. 

In  this  refractory  ward  for  cases  of  acute  mania  paupers 
were  huddled  up  together  with  the  well-to-do,  and  eleven 
of  the  twenty  cells  on  the  one  floor — the  ground  floor — in 
use  for  patients,  were  occupied  by  women.  The  registers 
of  St.  Botolph's  Church,   Bishopsgate,  record  the  birth  of 


144     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

children  in  these  cells,  but  the  only  woman  in  attendance 
at  such  times  was  the  porter's  wife.  Under  ordinary  circum- 
stances— until  a  later  date — the  only  attendants  upon  these 
women,  violent  viragoes  no  doubt,  were  male  keepers. 
During  the  day  those  men  and  women  who  were  allowed 
to  get  up  shared  the  same  exercise-yard  and  corridor, 
and  warmed  themselves  at  the  kitchen  fire — the  only  one 
in  the  house. 

The  report,  which  was  signed  by  the  treasurer  and  six 
of  the  governors,  sums  up  the  condition  of  the  insane  ward 
in  pretty  plain  language  : — 

"  We  do  find  other  defaults  in  the  said  house  in  such  sort 
that  it  is  not  fit  for  any  man  to  dwell  in,  in  which  it  was  left 
by  the  keeper,  for  that  it  was  so  loathsomely  and  filthily  kept 
that  it  was  not  fit  for  any  man  to  come  into  the  said  house." 

In  the  inspection  of  1607  the  names  of  the  patients  sent  in 
by  Bridewell  warrants  alone  are  mentioned,  and  mostly  by 
their  nicknames.  You  seem  to  hear  the  porter — the  show- 
man of  the  menagerie — giving  the  generous  visitor  little 
character-sketches  of  "  Welsh  Harry,"  "  Black  Will,"  "  Joane 
of  the  hospital,"  and  "Old  Madam."  At  these  official 
"  views "  the  poor-boxes  were  opened,  and  some  shillings 
spent  personally  on  the  "prisoners";  in  1607  a  shirt  or 
a  smock  was  added. 

The  prison-house  of  "  Bethalem  "  lay  between  two  open 
sewers,  and,  as  one  of  them  was  usually  choked  up  with  filth 
and  stagnant  water,  the  inmates  inhaled  the  stench  and 
poison  of  drains  day  and  night.  In  addition  the  gallery  and 
cells  became  so  filthy  under  private  management  that  in  1598 
the  governors  of  Bridewell  were  forced  to  admit,  as  I  have 
just  related,  that  the  hospital  was  "not  fit  for  anybody  to 
enter." 

In  this  noisome  kitchen  the  Cinderella  of  the  hospitals 
strove  to  fan  the  dying  embers  of  humanity.  But  a  fairy 
prince,  whose  name  was  Literature,  was  already  knocking  at 
her  door  in  these  last  years  of  Elizabeth's  reign.  It  was  not, 
indeed,  until  1676  that  she  left  her  kitchen  for  a  palace,  but 
meanwhile  her  prince  gave  her  a  part  to  play  in  the  theatre, 


CINDERELLA   AND   THE  PRINCE  145 

and  introduced  her  to  all  the  wits,  actors,  and  authors  of 
a  brilliant  age. 

Shakespeare,  who  had  been  associated  with  Bishopsgate 
by  residence  and  friendships,  distilled  the  noxious  philtres, 
which  he  administered  to  Ophelia  and  Hamlet,  from  the  herbs 
of  Bethlem's  garden. 

John  Davies  (16 12),  after  a  visit  to  our  house,  comforted 
himself  with  the  reflection  that  the  world  was  too  demented 
to  appreciate  true — his  own— genius. 

"  Praise  or  dispraise,  mad  world  :  all's  one  to  me, 
For  bad's  the  best  from  them  which  Bedlam  be." 

Thomas  Dekker  (i 577-1638)  has  laid  whole  scenes  in  the 
hospital  (as  in  Bridewell),  and  must  have  haunted  the  place, 
while  he  was  studying  his  plot.  You  may  find  him  at  his  own 
bookseller's  ("Joseph  Hunt's  in  Bedlem  "),  but  more  likely 
he  is  at  the  "White  Hart"  with  Ben  Jonson,  Webster,  and 
Middleton,  who  have  lavishly  repaid  Cinderella's  hospitality 
in  literary  coin.  The  landlord,  no  doubt,  was  in  high  feather 
about  the  money  he  was  going  to  make  out  of  the  stable, 
which  he  had  converted  into  six  shops  and  dwelling-houses. 
But  I  hope  that  one  of  our  tenants  reminded  him  that  he  had 
thereby  encroached  upon  the  hospital  wall — the  south  side  of 
Liverpool  Street  in  the  language  of  to-day.  They  are  all 
going  to  pay  a  visit  to  her  house  to-day,  but,  as  a  prelimi- 
nary, they  are  swilling  down  pickled  herrings  with  Rhenish 
wine.  Perhaps  we  should  add  to  the  group  Harry  Chettle, 
the  author  of  "  Kind-heart's  Dream  " — a  very  rare  book.  If 
so,  he  is  very  indignant  that  the  theatres  should  be  closed, 
and  that  gambling-places,  like  a  notorious  bowling-alley, 
held  by  one  of  our  tenants  in  Bethlem's  precincts,  should 
be  open — and  crowded. 

*'  Bedlem's  bowling-alley  " — let  me  say  by  way  of  paren- 
thesis— was  the  favourite  haunt  of  a  bully  of  the  Whitefriars- 
Alsatia  type.  On  a  memorable  occasion  he  replenished  an 
empty  purse  by  swaggering  off  with  the  stakes — his  hand 
significantly  toying  with  his  sword — before  the  discomfited 

II 


146     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

players  had  finished  their  game.  The  story  is  told  by 
S.  Rowlands  in  a  very  scarce  satire  which  he  published  in 
1609  under  the  title  of  "  The  Knave  of  Clubs." 

Their  saucy  companion  is  "  Tafifety  Meg,"  who  has  set  the 
table  in  a  roar  with  her  recent  experiences  at  Bridewell, 
where  she  has  usually  been  welcomed  with  a  whipping.  In 
the  year  1602  the  governors  had  handed  over  their  trust  to 
an  "undertaker,"  or  contractor,  who  was  in  the  habit  of 
arranging  very  delightful  suppers  for  his  more  attractive 
prisoners.  These  favoured  ladies — the  court  books  tell  the 
story  in  the  blackest  of  inks  and  the  most  rigid  of  letters 
— "  wore  glorious  apparel,"  and  the  suppers  included  "  crabs 


THE   KNAVE  OF   CLUBS. 


lobsters,  and  artichoke  pies "  in  the  gayest  of  company 
with  "  gallons  of  wine." 

The  austere  and  thoughtful  puritan,  as  he  watched  play- 
wright and  satirist,  actor  and  poet  lurch  into  Bedlam  for  an 
hour's  diversion,  longed  to  turn  the  key  upon  them  for  the 
term  of  their  lives  as  "  dangerous  to  themselves  and  others." 

But  there  was,  I  think,  one  man  of  letters  who  visited 
Bethlem  rather  to  "  minister  to  minds  diseased "  than  to 
provide  himself  with  popular  "  copy "  :  this  was  Nicholas 
Breton  (1545-1626).  He  was  a  "figure  in  the  fields  easily 
deciphered "  (for  "  melancholy  had  marked  him  for  her 
own"),  and  was  "as  near  Bedlam"  (he  tells  us  in  his  pro- 
verbial style)  "  as  Moorfields  "  was   to  the   hospital.     Often 


CINDERELLA   AND    THE  PRINCE  147 

on  the  verge  of  the  abyss,  he  was  withal  of  a  humble 
religious,  and  sympathetic  nature,  and  I  like  to  think  of  him 
as  trying  to  impart  some  of  his  own  resignation  and  hopeful- 
ness to  those  whose  depression  and  temptations  he  understood 
all  too  well.  There  are  traces  of  many  a  visit  to  "  Bethalem  " 
in  his  "Forte  of  Fancie  "  (1584).  In  this  poem  he  describes 
just  such  a  "  foul  hole "  and  "  loathsome  den "  as  the 
minutes  of  1598  describe,  and  in  it  we  hear  the  raging  and 
the  stamping,  the  fretting  and  the  groaning,  to  which  con- 
temporary writers  testify.  His  "anatomy  of  melancholy" 
was  not  written  out  of  ancient  tomes,  after  the  manner  of 
Burton. 

With  idealizing  hand  he  sketches  a  house  which  is 
unroofed,  windowless,  and  open  to  wind  and  rain.  And 
within  this  house  in  ruins  there  is  a  crazy,  dilapidated  old 
bedstead,  carved  all  over  with  the  faces  of  nightmare  and 
delirium.  And  on  that  bed  confused,  self-tormented,  and 
goaded  by  all  the  furies,  madness  tosses  and  tumbles  with 
haggard,  sleepless  eyes.  By  the  bedside  are  many  instru- 
ments of  music,  but  of  one  the  strings  are  broken,  the  keys 
of  another  are  lost,  of  the  trumpet  the  metal  is  cracked,  and 
in  the  lute  there  is  a  rift.  Hushed  in  such  a  house  is  all  the 
music  and  melody  of  life  for  a  while,  or  it  may  be  for  ever. 

"  Above  them  all,  upon  the  top  of  this  same  hill, 
Dwells  madness,  master  of  them  all,  and  witless  will. 
He  fears  no  hurt,  nor  cold,  for  if  with  heat  he  glow, 
The  waves  of  woe  will  cool  him   straight,  which  there  by  tides  do 

flow. 
For  through  this  forest  runs  the  sea  of  sorrow  sore. 
Whose  waves  do  beat  against  this  fort,  that  bordereth  on  the  shore  ; 
In  raging,  frantic  fires  he  passeth  forth  the  day, 
In  strange  perplexities,  himself  tormenting  many  a  way. 
Ready  to  kill  himself  and  with  his  hair  upright, 
He  cried,  he  would  rather  die  than  bide  such  deep  despite." 


CHAPTER   XVIII 
VISITORS    AND    NEIGHBOURS 

The  historian  of  the  hospital,  it  has  already  been  hinted,  lies 
under  many  obligations  to  Thomas  Dekker,  the  versatile 
author  of  every  kind  of  literature.  He  is,  indeed,  for  him  the 
"  Belman  of  London,"  who  throws  light  on  obscure  allusions 
to  Bethlem,  and  with  bell  and  voice  indicates  their  importance, 
perhaps  also  adding  to  his  hoard  of  information. 

Dekker  has  not  the  subtle  art  and  the  delicate  touch  of 
Shakespeare  in  delineating  the  incubation  and  development 
of  nervous  maladies.  But  his  scenes  in  Bishopsgate  are 
painted  from  living  models,  and  his  realism  is  based  on 
accurate  observation  :  his  "  interior  "  of  Bethlem  has  all  the 
homely  truth  and  minute  detail  of  a  picture  by  an  old  Dutch 
master. 

In  the  "Honest  Whore"  (1604),  although  "Bethlehem 
Monastery"  is  by  a  stage  fiction  set  down  in  Milan,  you 
hear  the  patients  of  an  institution  known  to  every  Londoner 
abusing  their  inquisitive  visitors,  or  quarrelling — not  without 
violence — among  themselves.  And  Dekker  has  allowed  us  to 
watch  with  his  registering  eye  one  of  the  inmates  lashing 
himself  into  the  fury  which  identifies  his  questioners — this 
is  the  touch  of  an  expert — with  the  Turks,  who  wrecked  his 
ships  and  his  fortunes. 

It  is  part  of  the  plot  of  the  play  that  some  of  its  characters 
should  assemble  for  a  marriage  at  the  church  of  the  monastery 
— "  upon  the  west  end  of  the  abbey  wall " — and  that  a  visit 
should  be  paid  to  the  patients  of  Father  Anselmo,  its  master. 

At  the  hospital  they  encounter  a  sweeper  of  a  humorous 

148 


/ 


VISITORS  AND  NEIGHBOURS 

THE  B ELM AN 

OF  LONDON. 

Bringing  to  light  the  mofl:  notorious 

villanies  that  are  now  pradifed 
in  the  K  i  ng  d  om  e. 

Profiublefor  Gentlemen,  Lawyers,Merchants,Citizens  Jarir.cr? 
Madenoi  Houl]iol<ls,and  all  fortes  oi  fcruints^to  maike, 
aa<J  delightf  ull  for  all  men  to  Rcade, 

Lege^  PerUge^  RtUge, 


149 


I'n/i'C'l.lf  r«Ml(l(>l!jorN  ATllANIbL    r.V  I  I  »K.       \    i*»' 


FACSIMILE  OF  A  TITLE-PAGE   OF   A  BOOK    BY   THOMAS   DEKKER,  THE 

AUTHOR     OF     PLAYS    AND     OTHER    WORKS    TREATING     OF    THE 

HOSPITAL    AND    ITS    PATIENTS. 


type,  who  entertains  the  party  with  "  tales  out  of  school,"  till 
the  arrival  of  Father  Anselmo. 


Fluello  :  Now,  honest  fellow,  dost  thou  belong  to  the  house  ? 

Sweeper  :  Yes,  forsooth.  I  am  one  of  the  implements.  I  sweep 
the  patients'  rooms,  and  fetch  straw  for  'em,  and  buy  chains 
and  rods  for  'em.  I  was  once  here  myself,  but  I  thank  Father 
Anselmo,  he  lashed  me  into  a  better  mind, 


150     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

Duke  :  Few  gentlemen  or  courtiers,  here,  eh  ? 

Sweeper  :  O  yes,  abundance,  abundance  !  Lands  no  sooner  fall  into 
their  hands,  but  straight  they  run  out  a'  their  wits.  Farmers' 
sons  come  hither  like  geese,  in  flocks,  and  when  they  ha'  sold  all 
their  cornfields,  here  they  sit  and  pick  the  straws. 

SiNEZi  :  Methinks  you  should  have  women  here  as  well  as  men. 

Sweeper  :  Oh,  ay,  a  plague  on  'em. 

The  puritans  of  the  period  were  virulently  assailing  the 
theatre  with  the  pen  and  from  the  pulpit ;  and  the  "  steeple- 
houses,"  or  churches  of  the  Church  of  England,  also  fell 
under  their  lash.  We  can,  therefore,  imagine  the  roar  of 
laughter  and  applause  which  broke  out  at  the  end  of  the 
sweeper's  remarks:  he  had  not  the  "Nonconformist  con- 
science." 
/  "  As  for  a  puritan,  there's  no  hope  of  getting  the  moon 
out  of  him,  unless  he  may  pull  down  the  steeple,  and  hang 
himself  with  the  bell  rope." 

Father  Anselmo  on  his  arrival  explains  to  the  duke, 
Castruchio,  Piorato  and  Fluello  that  there  are  different 
forms  of  insanity — one  of  the  first  lessons  a  layman  has 
to  learn. 

"  There  are  of  madmen,  as  there  are  of  tame. 
All  humoured  not  aUke  :  we  have  here  some. 
So  apish  and  fantastic,  play  with  a  feather. 
And,  though  'twould  grieve  a  soul  to  see  God's  image 
So  blemish'd  and  defac'd,  yet  do  they  act 
Such  antics  and  such  pretty  lunacies. 
That  spite  of  sorrow  they  will  make  you  smile. 
Others  again  we  have  like  hungry  lions, 
Fierce  as  wild  bulls,  untameable  as  flies. 
And  these  have  oftentimes  from  strangers'  sides 
Snatch'd  rapiers  suddenly,  and  done  much  harm. 
Whom,  if  you'll  see,  you  must  be  weaponless." 

Many  pages  of  the  play  I  could  not  quote  without 
running  them  through  the  laundry  and  the  mangle.  But  the 
concluding  lines  are  very  beautiful  :  in  them  the  poet  repre- 
sents a  patient  husband  as  reconciled  to  his  unjust  detention 
in  Bethlem  by  the  example  of  Christ  in  His  sufferings. 


VISITORS   AND  NEIGHBOURS  151 

Duke  :  What  comfort  do  you  find  in  being  so  calm  ? 
\  Candido  :  The  best  of  men 

That  e'er  wore  earth  about  him  was  a  sufferer, 
A  soft,  meek,  patient,  humble,  tranquil  spirit, 
The  first  true  gentleman  that  ever  breathed. 

Nearly  opposite  the  gate  of  the  hospital — from  1536,  at 
any  rate — stood  an  old  inn  called  the  "  Dolphin. "  Now 
the  "  Dolphin "  was  an  inn  with  an  inheritance  of  very 
romantic  associations.  It  is  said  by  the  author  of 
"  Vestiges  of  London  "  that  the  "  Dolphin  "  was  once  adorned 
with  fleur  de  lys  and  dolphins,  and  it  has  been  argued  from 
these  and  other  facts  that  on  the  site  of  the  inn  stood  (say,  in 
1 216)  a  house,  which  was  occupied  by  Louis,  the  dauphin  of 
France,  when  he  came  to  prosecute  the  claims  of  his  father  to 
the  throne  of  England.  In  1330,  as  we  have  seen,  it  was  in 
the  possession  of  one  John  Bird,  a  poulterer,  our  freehold 
property  ("  Staple  Hall  ")  standing  to  the  north  of  it.  It 
is  actually  mentioned  as  the  "  Dolphin "  inn  in  a  lease 
of  "  Staple  Hall "  granted  by  Peter  Mewtys,  master  of 
Bethlem  (1536-1546),  to  our  tenant,  John  Stryngfellow.  In 
the  sixteenth,  seventeenth,  and  eighteenth  centuries  it  was 
the  port  of  arrival  and  departure  for  many  coaches,  and 
among  its  visitors  were  the  men  who  founded  the  East  India 
Company.  In  1792  the  Society  of  Friends  bought  the  site, 
and  erected  on  it  two  large  meeting-houses,  which  are  still 
in  use.  In  the  comedy  of  "Northward  Ho!"  (Dekker  and 
Webster,  1607)  some  young  bloods  stable  their  horses  at 
this  old  coaching  house,  and  saunter  across  the  street  to 
see  the  "  show  "  at  Bethlem. 

In  the  course  of  a  tour  round  the  ward  it  strikes 
Greenshields  as  a  happy  thought  to  play  a  practical 
joke  on  Bellmont.  Accordingly,  while  Bellmont  is  talk- 
ing to  a  "  pretty,  well-favoured  woman,"  who  protests 
that  she  has  never,  never  been  in  Bridewell,  the  rest 
of  the  party  inform  Fullmoon,  the  head  attendant,  that 
they  have  made  the  pretence  of  a  visit  to  entrap  a 
very  dangerous  character  into  the  asylum  "without  gaping 
of  people." 


152     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

/  Greenshields  :  Here's  a  crown  to  provide  for  his  supper  :  to- 
morrow morning  bedding  and  a  gown  shall  be  sent  in  :  let  his 
straw  be  fresh  and  sweet.  You  shall  be  well  paid  if  you  convert 
him.  Get  a  couple  of  your  sturdiest  fellows  and  bind  him,  while 
we  slip  out  of  sight. 

Enter  Fullmoon  and  two  Keepers. 

Bell  :  How  now  !     What  do  you  mean  ?     Are  you  mad  ?     Let  go, 
you  dogs  ! 

Full  :  Bind  him,  hold  him  fast. 

Bell  :  I  hold  my  life  my  comrades  have  put  this  fool's-cap  upon  my 
head. 

In  the  end,  of  course,  the  joke  is  explained  to  Full- 
"  moon,  and  is  taken  in  good  part  by  the  victim  of  it, 
who  is  adjudged  to  treat  his  persecutors  to  a  dinner  at 
Ware. 

Everybody, whoJived_in  London  or  ever  came  to  London 
visfte3  Bethlem  as  a  matter  of  course.  It  would  be  safe  on 
this  ground  alone  to  argue  that  Reginald  Scot  was  familiar 
with  one  of  the  sights  of  London.  But  I  go  so  far  as  to 
suggest  that  the  hospital  inspired  him  to  protest  against  the 
burning  and  drowning  of  witches  on  theological  grounds. 
In  the  year  1584  he  published  his  memorable  work  "The 
Discovery  of  Witchcraft,"  attacked  with  such  rancour  and 
bigotry  by  James  I  in  his  "  Demonologie."  In  it  he  was  the 
first  in  England  to  diagnose  the  element  of  insanity  in  the 
witch  and  the  bewitched.  He  saw,  for  instance,  that  many 
of  the  "  bewitched  "  were  suffering  not  from  enchantment, 
but  from  a  disordered  brain.  They  were  "conscious  of 
unaccustomed  sensations " :  they  heard  voices  taunting 
them  ;  or  a  sense  of  persecution  by  their  neighbours  haunted 
and  harassed  them :  they  could  only  conclude  that  they 
were  bewitched.  Such  delusions  and  obsessions  sent  hun- 
dreds of  innocent  people,  between  1541  and  1736,  to  prison 
or  death.  To-day  hallucinations  of  seeing  and  hearing,  or 
delusions  of  persecution  justify  a  doctor  or  a  magistrate  in 
'    signing  a  certificate  of  insanity. 

Some  two  hundred  folios  went  to  the  making  of  his 
treatise,  but  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose  that  it  was  in  the 
medical  school  of  Bedlam,  as  well  as  in  the  villages  of  Kent, 


VISITORS  AND   NEIGHBOURS  ^  153 

that  Scot  acquired  such  a  personal  and  practical  knowledge 
of  the  symptoms  indicative  of  mental  disorder. 

One  of  our  neighbours  was  also  one  of  our  tenants.  Next 
door  to  the  "  Dolphin  " — according  to  Stow  in  1602 — was  the 
"  fcilr  house  built  by  Lord  John  Paulet."  This  house  (the 
Staple  Hall  of  1330)  was  valued  in  the  official  inspection  of 
1642  at  £'^0  p.a.,  and  included  a  court-yard,  turrets,  and 
garden.  Behind  posts  and  railings  an  entry  led  to  a  house 
three  storeys  high  which  presented  to  the  street  a  "  handsome 
front  of  brick  and  timber."  Some  outbuildings  of  this 
house  impinged  on  the  "  Dolphin  "  property  of  the  Campions, 
and  led  to  litigation  which  went  against  the  governors.  In 
the  leases  and  court  books  which  have  escaped  theft  and  fire 
there  is  no  mention  of  the  Paulets,  but  presumably  they  were 
tenants  for  a  time  of  the  "  Campions,"  who  held  a  99  years' 
lease  from  the  hospital  :  at  any  rate  four  Paulet  children 
were  christened  in  St.  Botolph's  Church  between  1561  and 
1564.  In  1854  the  Rev.  T.  Hugo  inspected  a  house  in 
Bishopsgate  which  he  thought  might  have  been  part  of  this 
house,  or  of  Devonshire  House.  In  several  of  the  rooms  he 
found  a  cornice  of  fruit  and  flowers,  and  in  a  room  on  the 
second  floor  over  the  fireplace  the  arms,  supporters,  and 
motto  of  Henry  Wriothesley,  Earl  of  Southampton,  who  was 
the  patron  and  friend  of  Shakespeare. 

The  mention  of  Shakespeare  reminds  me  of  a  curious 
story  about  another  neighbour  of  ours :  I  unearthed  it  under 
1st  April  in  the  court  book  of  1598. 

One  Elizabeth  Evans,  who  had  been  lodging  at  a  "  brown- 
baker's  "  within  hail  of  the  hospital,  was  charged  at  Bridewell 
with  leading  an  immoral  life.  She  would  have  been  whipped, 
had  not  Sir  W.  Hayward  begged  her  off  on  the  ground  that 
she  was  a  kinswoman  of  his  and  of  the  Lord  High  Admiral. 
George  Pinder  and  Mistress  Joyce  Cowden  (her  school- 
fellow), who  were  both  of  them  natives  of  Stratford-on-Avon, 
gave  evidence  that  Elizabeth  was  also  born  at  Stratford-on- 
"  Haven."  It  appeared,  further,  that  she  was  a  "  gentlewoman 
of  a  good  parentage,"  and  that  she  "  had  a  good  portion  of 
her   own  " :  her   father — "  Robert  or  Thomas    Evans  " — had 


154     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

been  a  cutler  in  Stratford  and  had  met  with  an  "  ignominious 
death."  If  the  signature  in  the  court  book  is  original,  "  Eliz. 
evens"  signed  her  tearful  promise  of  amendment  without  a 
tremor  in  a  very  neat,  well-formed  hand. 

The  tragedy  of  her  father's  death  may  have  placed  his 
daughter  at  the  mercy  of  the  unscrupulous.  And  henceforth, 
perhaps — to  the  piping  of  passion — she  danced  along  the 
descending  road  to  the  foot  of  the  hill. 


CARVING  FROM  A   HOUSE  IN  BISHOPSGATE. 


Did  Shakespeare,  the  artist,  find  in  her  story  some  of  the 
colours  which  he  mixed  on  his  palette  ? 

Next  door  to  Lady  Campion's  was  a  lordly  mansion  with 
large  gardens  and  bowling-alleys.  "  Fisher's  Folly  " — to  use 
the  popular  nickname — ruined  or  embarrassed  its  builder, 
a  warden  of  the  Goldsmiths'  Company  in  1567,  but  it  was 
successively  inherited  by  people  of  noble  lineage  and  of 
historic  importance  :  to-day  Devonshire  Square  occupies  the 
site  of  it  and  recalls  its  later  name.  In  1588,  Vere,  Earl 
of    Oxford  —  eccentric,    unbalanced,     versatile  —  presented 


VISITORS  AND  NEIGHBOURS  155 

Elizabeth  in  this  palace  with  gloves,  perfumes,  and  washes 
from  Italy.  In  1660  Lady  Monck  paid  a  visit  to  its  owner 
and  our  benefactor,  the  wise  and  charming  Countess  of 
Devonshire,  to  whom,  according  to  tradition,  she  gave  the 
preconcerted  signal  that  her  husband  would  restore  the  king. 
On  this  occasion  she  visited  Bethlem,  when  a  royalist  address 
was  read  to  her  (by  one  of  the  patients)  as  the  "sweet 
delight  of  him  who  will  restore  our  right." 

Three  hundred  and  thirty-three  years  hence  Bethlem  should 
be  celebrating  her  thousandth  birthday  with  a  pageant  of  her 
centuries.  I  have  already  indicated  in  this  chapter  some  of 
the  more  picturesque  characters  who  might  be  allowed  to 
stand  for  the  reigns  of  two  queens,  who  threatened  our 
ancient  domain  at  Charing  Cross.  And  yet  I  have  not 
mentioned  such  benefactors  as  Lord  Hastings,  who  led 
Queen  Mary's  horse  at  her  coronation,  or  Sir  Thomas 
Gresham,  whose  Exchange  was  opened  by  Queen 
Elizabeth. 

And  perhaps  John  Moore  should  not  lack  a  place  in  the 
procession  I  have  marshalled.  He  gave  out — and  he  made 
one  disciple  who  suffered  along  with  him — that  he  was 
"divine,"  and  in  1561  he  was  whipped  from  the  Marshalsea 
near  our  present  hospital  to  "'  Bedlim  Gate,"  till  he  "  con- 
fessed himself  a  sinful  man " :  no  doubt  his  religious 
exaltation  admitted  him  within  "  Bedlim." 

"The  Belman  "  of  Bethlem  I  ring  out  Queen  Elizabeth  as 
she  rides  past  the  hospital,  escorted  by  a  thousand  men  in 
armour,  from  the  sermon  at  the  Spital  Cross. 


CHAPTER   XIX 
DR.    CROOKE 

One  Thomas  Jenner  was  the  keeper  of  Bethlehem  Hospital 
in  1618,  when  an  inquiry  was  held  at  the  Guildhall  into  his 
conduct.  Unfortunately  the  court  books,  which  would  have 
yielded  materials  for  his  biography,  are  missing  between 
1610  and  1617.  We  can,  however,  conjecture  the  nature  of 
the  charges  levelled  at  his  management  from  some  of  the 
terms  used  in  the  course  of  this  investigation,  which  was 
ordered  by  James  I.  It  was  alleged,  for  instance,  that  he 
was  "  unskilful  in  the  practice  of  medicine,"  and  therefore 
"  unfit  for  the  duties  of  his  position."  It  was  also  insinuated 
that  he  had  been  guilty  of  harshness  and  neglect  towards  his 
patients.  For  the  king  reminds  the  commissioners  that  those 
who  suffer  from  mental  affliction  ought  to  be  "  treated  with 
all  the  care  necessary  to  their  state  by  the  rules  of  medicine." 
The  commissioners  were,  he  adds,  to  "  dislodge  any  person 
who  lacks  the  necessary  skill,  and  to  raise  Bethlehem  to  the 
level  of  St.  Bartholomew's  and  St.  Thomas's." 

It  is  stated  in  the  preamble  of  the  commission  that  it 
had  been  urged  on  the  king  in  the  "  humble  petition  of  our 
beloved  servant,  Hilkiah  Crooke,  doctor  of  medicine  and 
regius  professor,"  and  in  conclusion  he  is  recommended  as 
a  "  faithful  and  skilful  man  to  set  over  the  house  of 
Bethlem." 

I  propose  to  tell  the  story  of  Dr.  Crooke,  the  last  of  the 
keepers  of  Bethlehem  Hospital,  who  may  at  the  same  time 
be    styled    the    third    of  its    medical    superintendents.      He 

rode  gallantly  into  the  lists  as  the  chivalrous  champion  of 

156 


DR.    HILKIAH    CROOKE,    KEEPER    OF   BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL,    DELIVERING   A    LECTURE 
ON    ANATOMY   AT   THE    COLLEGE    OF    BARBER  SURGEONS. 

This  picture  contains  the  earhest  portrait  of  a  hospital  official  :  the  foot  of  Dr.  Crooke  touches  the 

words  "  Printed  by  T.  Cotes." 


DANIEL,  CROMWELL'S   PORTER,  IN  THE  DRESS  OF  A  PATIENT   OF  THE   HOSPITAL. 

He  is  expounding  from  his  Bible.     His  great  height  is,  or  was,  marked  on  the  terrace  at 
Windsor  Castle  by  the  letter  O. 


(Sec  p.  186.) 


To  face  p.  157 


DR.   CROOKE  157 

the  oppressed,  but  at  the  last  he  was  hooted  out  of  the  arena 
by  king  and  people  as  false  to  his  knightly  vow. 

Hilkiah  Crooke  was  a  Suffolk  man  of  parts  and  learning, 
and,  after  studying  at  Cambridge  and  Leyden,  was  appointed 
in  1604  physician  to  James  I.  In  the  next  year  he  wrote  a 
book  on  anatomy  ("  Mikrokosmographia "),  which  he  dedi- 
cated to  his  royal  patron.  In  his  dedication  he  purred  into 
his  master's  ears  how  much  "  foreign  nations  loved  and 
admired  the  encyclopaedic  learning  of  the  most  literary  of 
kings."  A  second  edition  of  this  treatise  on  physiology — a 
compilation  rather  than  an  original  work — was  published  in 
1 63 1,  and  a  dedication  to  Charles  I  prefaced  the  text. 
Although  the  circulation  of  the  blood  is  not  directly  men- 
tioned, yet  Dr.  Crooke  pays  a  handsome  tribute  to  the 
researches  of  Harvey,  its  discoverer. 

The  frontispiece  of  the  volume  is  partly  personal  and 
partly  mystical ;  it  is  the  work  of  Droeshout,  who  engraved  a 
well-known  portrait  of  Shakespeare.  In  the  upper  part  of 
the  page  the  Divine  eye  looks  down  upon  life  and  death 
from  the  centre  of  such  a  living  rose  as  Dante  saw  in  his 
visions  of  heaven,  the  cloudy  petals  of  which  bear  cherubs 
angels,  stars,  and  devils  in  serried  circles. 

At  the  foot  of  the  page  Dr.  Crooke,  a  grave  figure  with  a 
long  face  and  pointed  beard,  is  delivering  a  lecture  on  the 
/brain  before  a  company  of  professors  and  students  in  the 
theatre  of  the  College  of  Barber-Surgeons.  A  copy  of  this 
book,  presented  by  the  author  to  the  College  of  Physicians, 
of  which  he  was  a  fellow  and  reader  in  anatomy,  escaped  the 
Fire  of  London,  and  is  preserved  in  the  College  library. 

Some  complimentary  verses  in  Greek,  Latin,  and  English, 
by  admiring  disciples,  introduce  the  medical  student  to  what 
must  have  been  the  standard  text-book  of  the  day.  The  gist 
of  them  is  that  henceforth  such  a  genius  as  the  reader  in 
anatomy  may  be  considered  above  the  reach  of  all  envy  and 
disparagement. 

In  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography  Dr.  Crooke 
still  occupies  these  heights  sublime :  I  am  going — with 
profane  hands — to  take  the  statue  down  from  the  pedestal. 


158     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

On  the  13th  April,  1619 — once  more  to  launch  out  into 
the  current  of  my  story — Hilkiah  Crooke  was  elected  keeper 
of  the  hospital,  king  and  courtiers  besieging  Bridewell  on 
his  behalf. 

In  this  year  or  the  next  Middleton  must  have  been  writing 
the  greatest  of  his  plays,  "  The  Changeling."  In  it  we  hear 
"  the  chimes  of  Bedlam  go  "  :  a  comic  scene  is  transferred 
from  such  a  ward  as  ours  ;  and  one  of  the  characters  is  the 
keeper  of  the  house — possibly  Dr.  Crooke. 

It  is  to  be  hoped,  however,  that  Dr.  Crooke  had  never  been 
reduced  to  the  predicament  of  Alibius,  the  keeper  of  the 
play.  He  was  an  elderly  man  with  a  young  wife  whom  he 
did  not  altogether  trust.  Accordingly  he  shut  her  up  in 
charge  of  his  patients,  the  head  attendant  (Lollio)  promising 
to  keep  an  eye  upon  her  conduct.  Of  course  two  young 
gallants  promptly  manage  to  find  their  way  to  her  feet — 
under  the  novel  disguise  of  patients  just  admitted  on  urgency 
orders ! 

Dr.  Crooke  knew  everybody  worth  knowing  at  the  court 
or  in  the  city.  He  was  quite  strong  enough — with  such 
influences  behind  him — to  have  secured  for  Bethlem  inde- 
pendence and  prosperity  ;  and  I  see  no  reason  to  doubt  the 
sincerity  of  his  demand  for  sweeping  reforms — in  the  flush  of 
his  enthusiasm. 

Indeed,  without  delay  he  initiated  a  campaign  against 
Bridewell  in  a  petition  to  James  I  :  this  appears  to  be  the 
"  scandalous  petition  "  of  the  court  books  which  fluttered  the 
dovecotes  on  the  banks  of  the  unfragrant  Fleet.  In  it  he 
urged  that  Bethlem  should  be  at  once  emancipated  from  the 
control  of  Bridewell,  alleging — with  absolute  accuracy — that 
it  had  not  thriven  since  the  union  of  the  two  hospitals 
in   1557. 

About  this  time,  however,  James  scented  an  intrigue  on 
the  part  of  the  city  against  the  jurisdiction  which  he  claimed 
over  Bethlem,  and  Reform  was  obliged  to  creep  back  dis- 
appointed into  the  dark  kitchen  with  the  barred  windows,  to 
which  Cinderella  was  still  condemned. 

Meanwhile   the  keeper  found  virtue — no  longer  in  royal 


BRIDEWELL  HOSPITAL  IN  THE  TUDOR 
AND  STUART  PERIODS. 

{By  permission  of  Messrs.  Chatto  &  Windits.) 


TTe.  Thames  trantr. 


/^ 


160     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

apparel — unattractive  and  impoverishing — and  he  seems  to 
have  ceased  to  exercise  any  personal  supervision  over  his 
servants  and  their  behaviour  ;  inevitably  serious  abuses 
resulted. 

In  1620  there  was  licensed  at  Stationers'  Hall  a  pamphlet 
or  broad-sheet,  of  which  no  copy  is  now  known  to  exist  :  it 
was  entitled  "  The  Petition  of  the  Poor  Distracted  People  in 
the  House  of  Bedlem."  The  court  books  of  the  period 
partly  supply  the  loss  of  it.  For  in  the  same  year  we  read 
in  them  of  a  father  complaining  to  the  governors  that  for 
want  of  proper  attention  his  daughter's  foot  was  rotting 
away.  And  in  1622  there  were  charges  made  against  the 
servants  of  showing  unnecessary  harshness  towards  a  patient, 
one  Sir  W.  Clifton. 

At  the  end  of  1625  the  governors  resolved  to  investigate 
the  misdemeanours  of  Dr.  Crooke,  who  only  appeared  at  the 
hospital  on  quarter  days,  and  refused — with  warmth  of  speech 
— to  give  any  account  of  legacies  received. 

Between  1629  and  1632  there  flourished  a  school  of  literary 
miniaturists — Meissoniers  of  the  pen.  Here  is  an  etching  by 
Lupton  of  a  scene  in  the  hospital  during  the  keepership  of  a 
physician  and  reformer.  "It  seems  strange  that  any  one 
should  recover  here  :  the  cryings,  screechings,  roarings,  bowl- 
ings, shaking  of  chains,  swearing,  fretting,  and  chafing  are  so 
many,  and  so  hideous." 

Such  was  the  pandemonium  which  has  barbed  the  language 
of  controversy  with  such  phrases  as  "  Bedlam  broke  loose." 

Perhaps  it  will  be  something  of  a  relief  to  my  weary 
readers  if  I  leave  Dr.  Crooke  for  a  space  standing  in  the 
foreground  of  my  picture,  while  I  paint  in  its  historical 
background. 

In  1620  Yelverton,  the  attorney-general,  was  sent  to  the 
Tower  and  fined  ;^  1,000  for  that  he  had  "corruptly  and 
without  warrant  inserted  in  the  new  charter  for  the  city  of 
London  certain  clauses  granting  it  the  custody  of  Bethlehem 
Hospital  and  of  houses  intended  for  the  poor." 

James  I  was  always  in  want  of  money,  and  not  over  nice 
in  his  methods  of  raising  it.     Yelverton  had  already  paid 


DR.   CROOKE  i6i 

him  ^14,000  for  his  place  :  consequently  it  was  his  interest 
to  play  jackal  to  the  king.  But  his  common  sense — if  not 
his  sense  of  justice — revolted  against  some  of  the  illegal 
schemes  which  he  was  expected  to  uphold  in  the  courts  of 
law.  Accordingly  James  I  determined  to  ruin  him,  and 
the  chancellor  (Bacon,  the  philosopher)  suggested  the  safest 
way  of  doing  it.  The  terms  of  the  indictment  distinctly 
allege  that  Yelverton  allowed  himself  to  receive  or  antici- 
pate a  sum  of  money  from  the  corporation  for  wording  the 
charter  in  such  terms  as  would  secure  to  it  the  ownership, 
which  the  king  claimed,  as  well  as  the  government  of  the 
hospital — the  subject  of  the  ancient  controversy  between 
king  and  city. 

Before  saying  farewell  to  James  I,  who  punished  the  city 
by  postponing  its  charter  during  his  reign,  let  me  mention 
that  the  king  was  glad  to  make  use  of  Bethlem  for  a  trouble- 
some visitor. 

One  day  in  the  May  of  1619  he  was  sauntering  in 
Theobald's  Park,  Essex,  when  he  heard  himself  denounced  ''' 
in  the  language  of  an  Elijah  or  a  Jeremiah  : — "  Stand,  O 
king ;  I  have  a  message  to  deliver  thee  from  God.  '  I 
brought  thee  out  of  a  land  of  famine  and  hunger  into  a 
land  of  abundance. /-^Oughtest  thou  not,  therefore,  to  have 
judged  My  people  with  a  righteous  judgment  ? '  But  thou 
hast  perverted/  justice,  and  therefore  God  hath  rent  the 
kingdom  frpm  thee." 

Many  Londoners  wished  that  James  I  had  never  left  the 
"  land  of  famine "  with  a  horde  of  hungry  Scots,  but  the 
frankness  of  the  speaker  (an  old  officer)  was  in  his  case  a 
sign  of  disease,  and  he  was  confined  in  Bethlem.  He 
remained  there — no  doubt  to  the  intense  relief  of  the  king 
— for  three  years,  and  the  entries  in  the  minute  books  show 
that  the  governors  treated  him  generously  in  the  matter  of 
diet  and  clothes. 

Gaze  into  the  crystal,  and  think  intently  of  Robert 
Burton,  the  author  of  "  The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy " 
(162 1).  You  may  see  him  at  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  the 
sprightliest  and  most   literary   of  conversationalists   at   the 

12 


1 62     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

dinner  table.  Or  he  may  be  on  the  bridge,  roaring  with 
laughter  at  the  bargees  and  their  language — one  of  his  cures 
for  depression.     His  famous  book,  in  which  the  hospital  is 


mentioned  three  or  four  times,  is  an  epitome  which  gossips — 
in  delightful,  discursive  fashion — of  everything  that  has  ever 
been  written  about  mental  disease.  He  insists  that  he 
gathered    together     materials    for    his    folio    to    beguile   a 


DR.    CROOKE  163 

chronic  melancholy,  but  he  does  not  write  as  a  man  who 
had  crossed  the  distinct  line  which  separates  melancholy 
from  melancholia. 

I  am  sure  that  the  "  Anatomy  of  Melancholy  "  must  have 
been  on  the  shelves  of  such  physicians  of  ours  as  Meverall, 
Nurse,  Tyson,  and  the  Monros.  And  I  often  wonder  why 
they  did  not  experiment  with  some  of  the  pleasanter 
'medicines  which  Burton  has  preserved  in  the  amber  of  his 
book.  They  come  from  the  saner  school  of  pagan  medicine 
but  to-day  Dr.  Merryman  is  on  our  staff  as  well  as  Drs.  Diet 
and  Quiet. 

"Music,  mirth,  and  merry  company,"  says  Burton,  "are 
sovereign  remedies  against  melancholy."  He  quotes  with 
approval  those  physicians  who  would  surround  their  patients 
with  all  that  is  beautiful,  delightsome,  interesting,  and 
engrossing — singing,  dancing,  sports,  pictures,  and  flowers. 
But  he  is  a  little  doubtful — and  a  little  scandalized  perhaps — 
about  some  of  the  methods  by  which  Epicurus  sought  to 
thaw  the  sullen  ice. 

"  When  a  sick  and  sad  patient  was  brought  to  him  to  be 
cured,  he  laid  him  on  a  bed  of  down  in  a  beautiful  room, 
crowned  him  with  a  garland  of  fragrant  flowers,  and  adminis- 
tered to  him  a  flagon  of  wine,  while  a  fair  maiden  sang  and 
danced  to  the  sound  of  her  lute." 


CHAPTER  XX 
DR.   CROOKE-AND    AFTER 

Reference  has  already  been  made  to  Dr.  Timothy  Bright, 
physician,  clergyman,  and  inventor  of  shorthand.  In  his 
treatise  on  "  Melancholie  "  he  sets  himself  to  comfort  "  such 
as  faint  under  the  burden  of  religious  despair."  Many  of 
his  suo"o:estions  are  full  of  common  sense — such  as  the  in- 
fluence  of  a  well-lighted  and  cheerful  house,  bright  within 
with  pictures,  and  without  with  flowers.  But  in  the  same 
breath  he  explains  that  "  fantastic  and  melancholy  visions  " 
may  be  chased  away  by  such  stones  as  chalcedony,  and  these 
(he  says)  should  be  constantly  worn  in  rings  and  brooches. 
I  refer  again  to  Dr.  Bright,  because,  while  he  was  writing 
his  book,  he  was  neglecting  his  patients  at  St.  Bartholomew's, 
from  which  he  was  practically  dismissed  in   1586. 

Is  Dr.  Crooke  another  example  of  the  physician  who 
sacrifices  the  responsibilities  of  his  office  and  salary  to  more 
congenial  pursuits  and  society?  In  his  "study  in  Coleman 
Street"  the  famous  professor  of  anatomy  must  have  devoted 
years  to  the  revision  of  his  "  Mikrokosmographia,"  and  to 
other  literary  work  of  a  professional  type.  He  must,  more- 
over— for  he  was  a  familiar  figure  in  the  city  and  at  court — 
have  had  a  large  practice  and  many  interests  outside  the 
dim,  sad  under-world  which  he  was  paid  to  govern  "in 
person,"  and  not  by  deputy. 

In  consequence  of  his  neglect  and  exactions  his  hospital 
became  the  scene  of  such  scandals,  that  Charles  I  was  con- 
strained  to   have   them    investigated    by   two    commissions. 

These    commissions,    whose    findings    were   signed   by   the 

164 


DR.    CROOKE—AND  AFTER  165 

president  and  treasurer  of  Bethlem  and  Bridewell,  issued 
on  loth  October,  1632,  a  report  on  the  hospital,  and  on 
1st  April,   1633,  a  report  on  its  lettered  keeper. 

The  report  of  1632  is  as  valuable  historically  as  that  of 
1403  :  indeed,  I  have  pieced  out  much  of  the  early  history 
of  Bethlem  by  taking  patches  from  both. 

Let  me  transcribe  what  Laurence  Whittaker  and  John 
Withers  have  to  say  about  the  shrinking  of  the  hospital 
property  on  three  sides  out  of  four. 

"  Within  the  limits  and  bounds  mentioned  in  the  first 
donation  we  find  now  divers  dwellings  and  houses  to  the 
number  of  fifty-eight  with  some  gardens  and  back  yards 
to  them,  all  which  do  pay  rent  to  the  hospital,  and  ever  have 
done  since  the  first  donation,  and  their  building.  Of  which 
bounds  some  are  yet  visible,  viz.  :  that  towards  the  street 
eastwards  [Bishopsgate],  whereof  three  of  these  houses, 
belonging  to  the  hospital,  do  yet  stand,  and  also  that 
towards  the  church  land  southwards  [St.  Botolph's  church- 
yard], upon  part  of  which  church  land  (as  we  conceive  it 
was  at  the  first  limited)  did  stand  many  houses  now  pos- 
sessed by  one  Valence,  who  maketh  a  great  profit  of  them 
and  hath  built  a  very  high  brick  wall  against  divers  of  the 
tenements  now  belonging  to  the  hospital  to  the  great 
annoyance  and  stopping  up  of  their  lights  ; — which  houses 
of  the  said  Valence  we  conceive  it  very  probable  to  have 
been  within  the  bounds  of  the  first  donation,  and  now  lost 
from  the  hospital.  As  for  the  Deep  Ditch  westwards  [Blom- 
field  Street]  we  find  nothing  that  we  can  certainly  affirm 
to  be  it  :  only  near  the  place  we  may  conceive  it  was  we 
find  a  common  sewer.  But  we  do  not  find  that  the  posses- 
sions, now  enjoyed  by  the  hospital,  do  fully  reach  up  to 
it,  so  as  the  said  hospital  may  have  lost  somewhat  there 
likewise.  And  for  the  land  of  Ralph  Dunning  north- 
wards [say  Liverpool  Street  Station,  platform  No.  18]  we 
find  no  mention  at  all  now  remaining  of  it,  so  as  what 
may  be  lost  from  the  hospital  on  that  side  appeareth  not 
unto  us.  But  we  find  the  bounds  much  straitened  that  way. 
We  find  also  one  fair  tenement  with  a  garden  to  it  situated 


1 66     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

on  the  other  side  of  the  street  over  against  this  place 
["  Staple  Hall,"  or  Devonshire  House]  so  given  as  before 
said,  which  hath  time  out  of  mind  paid  rent  to  the  hospital, 
but  when,  or  by  whom,  given  we  can  find  no  record." 

The  counting  house  at  Bridewell  had  already  (I  learn  from 
State  papers)  encountered  criticism.  The  accounts  of  the 
two  hospitals  had — perhaps  as  a  result  of  Dr.  Crooke's  cam- 
paign— been  separated  in  1630,  but  two  years  later  Charles  I 
had  to  complain  that  the  balance  sheet — drawn  up  at 
Bridewell- — was  not  as  clear  and  simple  as  it  should  be. 

However,  in  the  course  of  the  same  year  the  president  and 
treasurer  produced  a  lucid  statement.  It  appears  from  it 
that  the  revenues  of  Bethlem  amounted  in  1555  to  i^43,  and 
should  have  increased  proportionably  in  practical  and  sym- 
pathetic hands.  But  the  governors  had  granted  long  leases 
on  low  rents  with  building  covenants,  and  for  fifty  years  the 
rate  of  increase  had  been  little  more  than  five  shillings  a 
year.  In  the  year  of  the  valuation  (1632)  the  revenue  from 
all  sources  was  computed  to  be  £2']'],  and  the  houses,  or 
tenements  in  houses,  had  multiplied  fourfold  from  16  in 
1555   to  64  in  this  year. 

The  revenues  had  hitherto  been  inelastic,  but  so  had  the 
expenditure,  until  Dr.  Crooke  had  raised  the  battle  cry  of 
"Justice  for  the  helpless."  The  place  had  been  managed 
on  £60  a  year  or  less  under  the  system  which  allowed  the 
keeper  to  make  his  own  profits  out  of  private  patients,  but 
in  1632  the  keeper's  bills  had  risen  as  high  as  ;^232  for 
the  year,  although  the  food  and  drink  sent  in  from  the  tables 
of  the  charitable  largely  defrayed  the  cost  of  maintenance. 

Some  measure  of  the  medical  superintendent's  expenditure 
may  have  been  legitimate  and  even  admirable.  He  may 
have  insisted  on  the  employment  of  a  surgeon  :  at  any  rate 
I  find  for  the  first  time  in  the  court  books  of  1628  definite 
allusions  to  surgeons  for  Bethlem.  John  Quince  (1628)  and 
Edward  Sey  (1633)  have  "done  several  cures,"  and  their 
"  wages  "  were  to  be  forty  shillings  a  year  with  occasional 
gratuities  and  vigilant  scrutiny — the  method  adopted  by  the 
governors  in  the  payment  of  their  servants. 


DR.    CROOKE—AND  AFTER  167 

But  it  was  notorious  that  the  doctor  had  already  violated 
the  conditions  to  which  he  had  subscribed  on  his  election. 
For  example,  he  was  to  *'  serve  in  person  "  :  after  a  few  years  ^ 
he  only  appeared  on  quarter  days.  The  keeper  was  to  "  have 
no  interest  in  the  lands  or  revenues  of  the  hospital  "  :  it  was 
proved  by  the  commissioners  of  1632  and  1633 — it  will  be 
more  convenient  for  the  rest  of  the  chapter  to  treat  their  two 
reports  as  one — that  legacies,  fees  from  patients'  friends,  and 
other  moneys  went  without  reference  to  the  steward's  bills 
into  the  bulging  pockets  of  Dr.  Crooke. 

An  auditor  from  the  Board  of  Trade  was  let  loose  on  the 
keeper,  but  that  elusive  fox  doubled  and  took  to  earth  when- 
ever he  was  hard  pressed.  He  asked  for  more  time  and  gave 
evasive  replies  as  long  as  he  dared.  He  was  not  dismayed  by 
any  array  of  figures,  readily  producing  a  "  conjectural  balance 
sheet."  According  to  this  ingenious  statement  the  hospital 
was  still  indebted  to  him  for  eggs  and  butter  supplied  to  the 
patients  from  his  farm  in  Essex.  The  commissioners  were 
willing  to  make  him  some  allowance  on  this  score,  but  they 
permitted  themselves  some  ironical  comments,  when  he  urged 
that  he  was  a  thousand  pounds  the  poorer  for  his  keepership 
of  thirteen  years.  According  to  their  reckoning  he  made 
at  least  £100  a  year  out  of.  the  hospital  by  methods  quite 
unjustifiable.  I  dare  say,  however,  that  Dr.  Crooke  rather 
plumed  himself  on  his  own  moderation,  for  it  appears  that 
he  was  "  paid  his  accounts  at  Bridewell  without  control, 
voucher,  or  examination." 

In  the  end  Hilkiah  Crooke  was  dismissed  in  spite  of  pro-  ^ 
tests  and  appeals.  He  escaped  the  prosecution  threatened 
by  the  council  of  Charles  I,  but — as  a  consequence  of  his 
disgraceful  behaviour — he  seems  to  have  been  called  on  by 
'  the  College  of  Physicians  to  resign  his  fellowship.  The 
Dictionary  of  National  Biography  notwithstanding,  he  was 
still  alive  in  1642,  vigorously  demanding  reinstatement  and 
compensation. 

The  lambs  fared  ill  with  two  wolves  in  their  pasture.  For, 
if  the  keeper  kept  the  steward  without  money,  the  steward 
and  his  wife  had  to  live  upon  the  patients. 


1 68     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

Condemned  meat — if  a  "  benevolence  "  had  been  judiciously 
bestowed — came  in  from  the  markets  :  the  mayor  and  sheriffs, 
as  from  time  immemorial,  placed  a  regular  supply  of  food 
and  drink  at  the  disposal  of  the  hospital ;  and  the  "  basket- 
men,"  the  successors  of  the  monastic  servants  who  roamed 
the  streets  with  box  and  basket,  had  only  to  call  next  door 
at  the  lordly  mansion  of  Sir  Paul  Pindar  for  anything  in 
the  way  of  leavings. 

A  generous  benefactor  in  life,  this  wealthy  merchant  would 
have  benefited  us  after  his  death  but  for  the  Civil  War. 

All  this  food  and  drink  was  of  course  meant  to  be  a  free 
gift  to  the  patients.  But  the  steward  and  his  wife — left  with 
little  but  the  bones  by  Dr.  Crooke — proceeded  to  take  the 
choicest  bits  for  themselves  and  to  sell  the  remainder,  which 
had  cost  them  nothing,  to  their  helpless  prisoners  at  six 
times  its  value.  Peter,  the  porter,  and  his  wife  (you 
remember  these  worthies  of  1403)  would  have  embraced 
such  disciples  effusively,  and  blessed  them  with  unction. 

But  sometimes  it  chanced  that  no  food  came  in  or  it  was 
intercepted,  and  then  the  sick  and  the  hungry  suffered. 

In  163 1,  for  instance,  two  of  the  governors  paid  a  surprise 
visit  to  Bethlem,  and  it  is  noted  in  the  court  books  that  they 
found  the  patients  "  like  to  starve,"  for  they  had  had 
*'  nothing  to  eat  for  days  together  but  some  small  scraps."  It 
is  added  that  on  a  previous  Sunday  there  was  "  nothing  but 
four  pounds  of  cheese"  to  divide  among  thirty  inmates  :  even 
the  fire  was  monopolized  by  the  steward's  wife,  who  "  would 
not  let  them  come  near  "  it. 

Poor  outcasts,  in  whose  behalf  no  Tuke  or  Shaftesbury 
had  yet  arisen  ! 

The  sequel  to  these  commissions  was  the  charter  granted 
to  the  city  in  1638.  In  it  Charles  I  confirmed  to  the  city  the 
government  of  the  hospital  as  well  as  the  possession  of  its 
estates,  while  he  indirectly  reasserted  the  rights  of  the  crown 
to  its  "soil  and  house."  The  city  was  reminded  of  its  obliga- 
tions to  the  poor,  for  whose  benefit  land  or  money  had  been 
given,  and  was  forbidden  to  grant  long  leases  at  small  rents. 

Charles   I   was   the  champion  of  charity  against  fraud,  but 


The  house  of  Sir  Paul  Pindar,  in  Bishopsgate   Without,  was,  within  my  recollection, 

a  tavern  ;   the  oak  front  of  it  may  now  be  seen  in  the  South  Kensington  Museum, 

to  which  it  was  removed  in  1890. 


To  face  p.  if 


DR.   CROOKE—AND  AFTER  169 

the  actual  grant  of  the  charter  was  extorted  or  hastened  by 
the  necessities  of  the  king.  He  wanted  money  for  a  war 
with  Scotland,  and  the  city  was  in  no  mood  to  raise  a  loan 
until  its  grievances  had  been  redressed.  Accordingly  he 
deemed  it  politic — for  a  consideration  of  ;^i  2,000 — to  renew 
to  the  city  its  ancient  privileges  and  franchises. 

The  play,  perhaps,  has  been  a  little  heavy.  Let  me  present 
the  reader  with  something  more  entertaining,  before  I  lower 
the  curtain. 

In  1637  one  Richard  Farnham,  a  Colchester  weaver, 
enjoyed  our  hospitality.  He  was  one  of  those  prophets  who 
identify  themselves  with  characters  in  the  Bible,  and  are 
unable  (for  they  are  the  victims  either  of  mental  delusion  or 
of  crude  literalism)  to  distinguish  between  the  actual  and  the 
figurative.  Farnham,  with  whom  was  associated  one  John 
Bull,  announced  that  he  was  one  of  the  "  anointed  witnesses  " 
of  the  book  of  Revelation  :  that  he  should  be  slain  in  the 
streets  of  Jerusalem,  where  he  was  to  receive  the  "  gift  of  the 
holy  tongue "  to  make  himself  understood  :  that  he  should 
rise  again  on  the  third  day  as  priest  and  king. 

These  delusions  were  inspired  by  the  mystic  visions  of 
John  the  Divine  :  he  proceeded — with  the  sanction  of  Hosea, 
as  he  supposed — to  tempt  a  wife  away  from  her  husband. 
Hosea — if  we  interpret  the  book  with  Western  eyes — was 
commanded  by  God  to  marry  an  unfaithful  woman,  or  to 
retain  a  wife  who  had  become  unfaithful,  as  a  sign  to  apostate 
Israel.  The  woman's  husband — not  a  mystic  student  of 
prophecy  but  a  plain,  blunt  sailor — indicted  his  wife  for 
bigamy.  As  a  result  of  the  trial  Farnham  was  committed  to 
Newgate  and  afterwards  to  Bethlem.  I  have  hunted  out  two 
entries  in  the  court  books  of  1638,  from  which  it  appears  that 
in  March  the  governors  were  unwilling  to  part  from  him, 
whereas  in  June  they  implored  Archbishop  Laud  to  remove 
him.  Dr.  Meverall,  physician  of  the  hospital  (c.  1634-1648), 
asked  by  the  lords  of  the  council  for  a  report  on  the  case, 
recommended  that  he  should  be  discharged  on  probation. 

Farnham — so  impregnable  was  his  faith  or  so  deep  seated 
his  delusion — confidently  prophesied  that  the  plague  should 


170     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

have  no  power  to  hurt  him  :  he  interpreted  quite  hterally  and 
in  his  own  favour  the  text  : — "  The  plague  shall  not  come 
nigh  thy  dwelling."  Nevertheless  towards  the  close  of  164 1 
he  sickened  (hard  facts  give  the  mystic  many  a  knock-down 
blow !),  and  died  at  a  disciple's  house  in  the  beginning  of  the 
following  year,  John  Bull  dying  ten  days  after.  His  followers 
refused  to  admit  that  he  was  dead,  and  some  of  the  women- 


A '  i'nie  DilcoiHie  of  the  Two  in- 

hunous  itptliH'i  Prophets,  Richard  Farrihj'H 


THE   TITLE-PAGE   OF   A   PAMPHLET   AGAINST   FARNHAM, 
THE   FIGURE   ON  THE    LEFT. 


folk,  hysterical  or  mendacious,  actually  testified  to  a  resurrec- 
tion of  Farnham  on  8th  January,  1642.  Indeed,  the  sectaries 
used  to  drink  to  both  their  dead  friends,  saying  that  they 
were  still  alive,  and  had  gone  in  "  vessels  of  bulrushes " 
(Revised  version — papyrus)  to  convert  the  lost  tribes  of 
Israel. 

Unfortunately  in  the  years  which  followed  there  were  left 
at  large  men  like  Farnham  who  should  have  been  shut  up  in 


DR.   CROOKE—AND  AFTER  171 

Bethlem  till  their  dangerous  period  was  past.  Such  a  man 
was  Robins,  the  ranter,  who  claimed  to  be  God  and  to  raise 
the  dead  :  such  were  the  pioneers  of  quakerism,  who  ran 
about  naked  as  a  "  sign "  against  insincerity ;  such  was 
Tannye,  the  "  Lord's  High  Priest,"  who  began  to  organize  an 
expedition  to  Jerusalem  for  the  rebuilding  of  the  Temple  ! 
Instead  of  reaching  the  holy  city,  this  would-be  crusader  did 
not  get  further  than  Bethlehem — not  in  the  Holy  Land — 
where  he  died  in   1677. 

Another  extraordinary  character,  whose  mystical  prophecies 
— or  nonsensical  ravings — no  doubt  helped  to  inflame  the 
puritans  against  Laud  and  Charles  I,  v/as  also  a  patient  of  ours. 
This  was  Lady  Eleanor  Touchet,  alias  Audeley,  alias  Davies, 
alias  Douglas.  In  our  own  court  books  she  appears  as  Lady 
Eleanor  Davies,  although  she  was  at  the  time  the  wife  of 
Sir  Archibald  Douglas.  On  i6th  August,  1637,  Langley, 
the  dishonest  steward,  complained  that  Lady  Davies  had 
been  billeted  on  his  house,  from  which  she  had  already  tried 
to  escape,  instead  of  being  lodged  in  the  common  ward. 
Sir  G.  Whitmore,  the  president,  replied  that  the  governors 
had  expressly  reserved  certain  rooms  in  the  official  residence 
of  the  steward  for  the  use  of  the  Bethlem  committee,  and  for 
the  accommodation  of  private  cases  :  at  the  same  time  he 
admonished  him  for  "giving  Lady  Davies  ill  words."  On 
3rd  January,  1638,  it  was  agreed  that  Lady  Davies  should 
only  have  "twenty  shillings  allowed  her  weekly  for  diet  and 
necessaries,  until  the  Lords  shall  further  order." 

It  took  me  several  years  to  dig  up  the  story  of  "  Lady  E." 
in  the  British  Museum  catalogue  under  Touchet,  her  family 
name,  and  under  Douglas,  the  name  of  her  second  husband. 
Eleanor  Touchet,  I  discovered,  by  following  up  one  clue  after 
another,  was  the  fifth  daughter  of  George  Touchet,  Lord 
Audeley  and  earl  of  Castlehaven  by  Lucy,  daughter  of 
Sir  Jas.  Mervyn.  Her  brother  was  the  notorious  Mervyn 
Touchet,  who  was  beheaded  on  Tower  Hill  14th  May,  1631, 
for  revolting  crimes.  Eleanor  is  said  to  have  had  a  learned 
education,  and  in  her  saner  youth  to  have  excited  the 
admiration  of  her  contemporaries  by  her    intellectual    gifts. 


172     THE    STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

In  1608-9  she  married  Sir  John  Davies,  the  attorney- 
general  for  Ireland.  In  spite  of  his  corpulence  Davies  was 
also  a  poet  of  something  more  than  minor  orders — a 
consideration  which  moved  James  I  to  embrace  him  as  a 
fellow-author  of  genius.  By  Davies  Lady  Eleanor  had 
two  children,  one  an  idiot,  who  was  drowned  in  Ireland, 
and  a  daughter,  Lucy,  who  married  Ferdinando,  sixth  earl 
of  Huntingdon.  In  1623  her  sorely-tried  husband  burnt 
one  of  her  prophecies,  and  she  was  moved  to  remark  that 
"John  Davies"  anagrammed  (anagramming  was  the 
fashionable  craze  of  the  period)  would  read  "Jove's  hand," 
and  that  within  three  years  the  "  hand  of  God  would  give 
him  his  mortal  blow."  By  way  of  anticipating  the  fulfil- 
ment of  her  prophecy  she  forthwith  donned  widow's  weeds, 
Sir  John  testily  ejaculating,  "  I  pray  you  weep  not  while 
I  am  alive,  and  I  will  give  you  leave  to  laugh  when  I  am 
dead."  However,  she  was  such  a  true  prophetess  that 
three  days  before  he  died  (8th  December,  1626),  she  had 
no  hesitation  in    "  giving  him  pass  to  take  his  long  sleep. 

Some  fragments  of  her  autobiography  may  be  encoun- 
tered in  "  Memoirs  of  Several  Ladies  of  Great  Britain," 
George  Ballard,  1752.  According  to  this  book  it  was  in 
1625  that  the  spirit  of  prophecy  fell  upon  her,  and  that 
she  took  to  the  study  of  Daniel,  to  the  neglect  of  her 
household  duties.  She  associates  what  an  alienist  would 
describe  as  the  incubation  of  her  religious  delusions  with 
her  introduction  to  a  deaf  and  dumb  boy  from  Scotland, 
one  George  Carr.  He  was  what  would  be  called  to-day 
a  thought-reader,  and  was  ready  to  signify  the  contents  of 
a  closed  page,  or  the  whereabouts  of  a  hidden  object. 

Between  1625  and  1633  the  "handmaid  of  the  Most 
High  God  "  appears  to  have  allowed  her  disordered  fancy 
— like  so  many  before  and  since,  without  as  well  as 
within  asylums — to  wander  over  the  book  of  Daniel,  and 
like  so  many  insane  prophets  and  ignorant  fanatics,  she 
saw  meanings  such  as  no  one  else  saw  in  the  Bible,  and 
set  herself  to  divine  the  will  of  God  by  constructing 
anagrams,  not  always  without  violence  to  the  rules  of  that 


DR.    CROOKE—AND  AFTER  i73 

art.  For  example,  she  rested  one  of  her  claims  to  inspira- 
tion on  the  fact  that  some  juggling  with  the  letters  of  her 
name,  Eleanor  Davies,  would  produce  the  anagram 
"Reveal,  O  Daniel." 

She  had   some  reputation    at   the   court  of  Charles   I   as 
having  prophesied  the  fate  of  Buckingham  and  his  expedi- 
tion,  but   her   mystical    commentaries  on    Daniel    and   her 
explosive  anagrams — launched    against   archbishop,   judges, 
and  king — recoiled  on  herself.     On   8th  October,  1633,  she 
was  tried  at  Whitehall  before  the  archbishop  and  other  com- 
missioners for  causes  ecclesiastical  on  account  of  the  petition 
she  had  presented  to  the  king,  and   because  she  had  printed 
one   of    her    prophecies    at    a   foreign    press.     Among   the 
exhibits  were  her  exposition  of  Daniel  and  her  anagrams  on 
ecclesiastical  personages,   judges,  and    others.     Two   of  her 
judges  divined  that  she  was  insane.     "  Send  her  to  Bedlam," 
was  the  advice  of  the  bishop  of  Rochester.     But  according 
to  Heylin,  Laud's  chaplain,  "  Lamb,  dean  of  Arches,  shot  her 
through  and  through  with  an  arrow  borrowed  from  her  own 
quiver."     Lady  Eleanor    Davies   had    found   Daniel    in   her 
name  :  with  his  pen  he  deduced  from  Dame  Eleanor  Davies, 
"  Never  so   mad    a  ladie  ! "     This   anagram  is  said  to  have 
"  brought  the  grave  court  into  great  laughter,"  and  to  have 
visibly  disconcerted  the  solemn  Sibyl.     The  majority  of  the 
commissioners,  having  heard  the  opinions  of  all,  decided  to 
fine  her  ;^3,ooo,  and  to  imprison  her — without   pen,  ink,   or 
paper — in   the  Gate-house,   Westminster,   until  the   fine  was 
paid.     For  some  two  years   or   so  Lady  Douglas — for  she 
married  her  second  husband  in  1626,  three  months  after  the 
death   of  the  first — was  closely  confined  in   the  Gate-house, 
but  was   then   removed    to   Bethlehem   Hospital,  where  she 
spent  the  next  seven   years  of  her  life — possibly  with  pen, 
ink,  and  paper. 

In  her  petition  to  the  House  of  Lords  22nd  September, 
1647,  she  describes  the  transfer  as  an  "exchange  of  the  grave 
for  hell — such  were  the  blasphemies  and  the  noisome  scenes." 
She  adds  that  when  she  was  discharged  from  the  hospital, 
she  found  herself  stripped  of  every  possession  and  though  not 


Strange  and  V  Vonderfuli 

PROPHESIES 

BY 

The  Lady  Eleanor  Au  de  le  y^.  who 

is  yet  alive^and  lodgeth  in  White-Hall. 

Which  Shee  Prophefied  fixteen  yeeres  agoe,  and 

had  them  Printed  in  Holland,  and  there  prefented 
the  faid  Prophefies  to  the  Prince  Eledor^  For  which  Ihe 
was  imprifoned  feven  yeers  here  in  England^  by  the  late 
King  and  hisMajeflies  Counceli :  Firft^fhe  was  put  into 
the  Gate-houfe  then  into  Bedlam^  and  afterwards  into 
the  Tower  of  LONDON. 

With  Notes  upon  the  faid  Prophefies,  how  farre 

they  are  fulfilled^  and  what  part  remains  yet  unfulfilled, 
concerning  the  late  King,  and  Kingly  Government,  and 
■the  Armies  and  people  of  ENGL  AND.  •  And  particu- 
larly White-Hall^and  other  wonderfull  Predidions. 


^A^^^^s'^^s^^^^^■^■^r^ 


Imprimatur  Theodore  Jennings     Auguft  25 .1649. 


London  Printed  for  Robert  Ibbitfon  in  Smithficld  near  the 
Queens  head  Tavern,    1649. 


Strange  and  Wonder  full 

PROPHESIES 


BY 


l^he  Lady  Eleanor  Audeley,  vpho  is  yet 
alive, and  lodgeth  in  White^Hall. 


TO  ^^iVnmoflbeiov'dlfing 
b  of  BabilonsiSong^ 
Concerns  you  more  full  well  I  wot 

thcnyedothinke  upon. 
c  Bellhazzer^lo^hchold  the  King 
feaflins:  his  thoufand  Lords-, 


^Thofe  that belecve this  pro- 
phecy. 

b  So  (he  frequently  called  the 
Bifhops  and  Courtiers  o^  En- 
gland. 

(The  late  King  Charles  whom 
in  alher  books  fhe  oildBelf^M^i- 
^er,hec3iuCe  the  wal  of  cheBan- 


Tbebus  and  Mars  prais  d  on  each  Itring,  quetting  houfe  atPVhlte-Haf, 
every  day  records.  where  he  {called,  (hould  be 

terrible  to  hinijas  a  writing  on 
the  wall  v^as  to  Beljhix::i;^^cr^ 
which  proved  true,  for  there 
he  was  beheaded. 
d  Here  fhe  prophecied  o^  his 
pawning  and   felling  of  his 


The  Temple  VefTels  of  Gods  Houfe^ 

boldly  in  dmnk  about  : 
His  (f  own  (tis  like  j were  made  away, 

bids  holy  things  bring  out , 


».».w-y         >.....g»,«      .^*...j^ -J,  .  <_,  -  ij> 

^  Praifing  of  Gold  and  Braffca  the  gods,  P'^,^^*    „.     , 

^f  Tr^n  Wr.n^  .n^  i^tnn^.  ^e  pulhng  down  of  pidures 


of  Iron,  Wood  and  Stone5 
/See^hear^nor  know,but  now  alaSj 
praifed  in  Court  alone. 


A^hand  appears^  lo  in  his  fight, 

as  he  did  drinke  the  wine. 
Upon  the  wall  againll.the  light 

it  wrote  about  a  line 
In  prefence  of  his  numerous  Peers, 

notfetan  hour  full. 
In  loyns  nor  knees  had  he  no  might, 

chang'dasagailly  skull, 
been  fcarce  an  houre  upon  the  Scaffold,  he  fell  downe  on  his  knees,  and  (o  laid 
his  neck  on  the  blocks  with  a  pale  gaftly  countenance,without  any  oppofition. 

A  Z  Who 


and  Organs  in  Churches. 
/All  did  rife  againfl  him  but 
the  Court  fadion. 
g  Here  iliee  prophecied  of  the 
Kings  deathj,  which  fell  out 
true  For  the  heads-man  took 
the  hatchet  in  his  hand  wher- 
with  hewasbe-headedjonthe 
wal  of  theBanquating-houfe, 
after  the  King  had  drank  a 
glaireofwine5atone  blow  or 
line  of  blood,  in  prefence  of 
h  '\s  then  Equalls,  tor  he  dyed 
as  Charles  Stuart.  Mu^[\e  had 


176     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

a  mile  distant  from  her  husband,  Sir  Archibald  Douglas,  at 
the  time  of  his  death,  she  was  not  suffered  to  know  even 
where  he  was  buried. 

The  "  Blessed  Ladie,"  as  she  sometimes  rather  presump- 
tuously styled  herself,  after  her  release  from  Bedlam  in  1643, 
or  thereabouts,  published  a  dozen  or  more  incoherent  treatises 
which  prove  that  her  malady  was  incurable.  In  1644  she 
managed  after  the  fashion  of  Jeremiah  to  get  a  "  testimony  " 
conveyed  to  Charles  I,  but  he,  like  another  Jehoiakim,  pro- 
ceeded to  burn  it  in  the  presence  of  his  courtiers.  She  also 
presented  Cromwell  some  four  years  later  with  a  tract,  "  The 
armed  commissioner,"  based  on  the  text  "  Behold  He  cometh 
with  ten  thousand  of  His  saints,"  on  which  Oliver  remarked 
with  a  spice  of  dry  humour,  "  I'm  afraid  we  are  not  all 
saints."  / 

I  have  inserted  in  the  text  as  illustrations  the  title-page 
and  the  first  page  of  Lady  Eleanor  Audeley's  "  Strange  and 
Wonderful  Prophecies."  The  original  edition  was  printed  in 
Amsterdam  in  1633,  and  was  presented  to  Prince  Charles  of  the 
Rhine  (a  brother  of  Prince  Rupert).  The  theme  of  the  poem 
is  Belshazzar's  feast  and  the  stanzas  are  quite  worthy  to 
rank  with  Byron's  "  The  King  was  on  his  throne."  The 
reprint  of  1649  sets  out  to  prove  that  Lady  Eleanor  foretold 
everything  that  happened  to  Charles  I.  Accordingly  the 
most  harmless  and  the  simplest  lines  of  her  poem  (as  you 
will  observe  in  the  illustration)  are  twisted  and  distorted  into 
unnatural  shapes.  "  Belchaser,"  for  example,  is  anagrammed 
into  "  Be  Charles."  The  "  Medes  "  are  the  Medici,  the  use 
of  the  Temple  vessels  was  a  prophecy  that  Charles  should 
have  to  pawn  his  own  plate,  the  "  Caldeans "  are  the 
Caledonians  ! 

Lady  Douglas  died  in  1652,  and  was  buried  beside  her  first 
husband,  Sir  John  Davies, 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE    LEAVEN    OF     PURITANISM 

With  the  dismissal  of  Dr.  Crooke  in  1634,  the  office  of  keeper 
became  obsolete,  and  a  dynasty  of  stewards  succeeded  ; 
unlike  the  mediaeval  masters  they  resided,  while  they  reigned, 
in  the  hospital,  until  the  appointment  of  a  resident  apothecary 
in  1816. 

The  first  and  the  worst  of  these  stewards  (one  Richard 
Langley)  imitated  only  too  faithfully  the  spirit  and  methods 
of  the  dishonest  steward  in  the  parable.  It  was  charged 
against  him  that  he  falsified  his  accounts,  and — in  the  absence 
of  scales — purloined  from  the  provisions.  In  reply,  Langley 
admitted  that  he  occasionally  helped  himself  to  a  marrow- 
bone or  a  piece  of  beef,  but  he  endeavoured  to  discredit  the 
incriminating  evidence  of  Withers,  the  porter,  by  alleging — 
a  recurring  charge  against  all  our  porters — that  he  took  his 
toll  of  the  visitors'  fees.  The  court,  conniving  at  an  occa- 
sional glass  of  beer  out  of  the  day's  takings,  presented  the 
porter  with  ^10  and  their  confidence,  but  suspended  the 
steward.  And  no  doubt  with  justice:  for  the  neighbours 
gave  both  the  Langleys  a  bad  name  as  "  unquiet,  uncivil,  and 
ungoverned  people,"  adding  that  it  was  often  midnight  before 
they  came  home,  "  both  far  gone  in  drink." 

This  battle  (for  the  truculent  steward  dealt  out  blows  as 
well  as  insults)  decided  against  her  husband.  Mistress 
Langley  carried  on  the  war  through  the  backyards.  In  the 
end  the  governors  found  it  necessary  to  provide  two  sets  of 
locks  and  keys  to  prevent  the  door  of  communication  (by 
which,   it  appears,  "  persons  of  note  and   quality  "  entered) 

13  177 


> 


178     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

being  opened,  except  by  the  consent  both  of  the  porter  and 
the  steward. 

In  arrears  with  his  accounts  to  the  last,  Langley  died  in 
1644,  leaving  his  wife  in  a  destitute  condition. 

The  steward  of  this  century  was  generally  in  arrears, 
and  once  at  least  in  prison.  Sometimes,  moreover,  the 
governors  were  perturbed  by  the  inordinate  quantity  of 
soap  supplied  to  the  patients,  or  had  grave  suspicions 
about  the  dozens  of  wooden  platters  supposed  to  be  lost 
or  destroyed. 

And  really  it  was  very  exasperating  that  Meredith,  the 
surgeon,  would  cure  wounds,  before  Meverall,  the  physician, 
and  Yardley,  the  apothecary,  had  examined  them,  and  "  made 
a  bargain  "  with  him  1 

The  governors,  therefore,  had  their  harassing  hours  :  no 
doubt  it  was  in  a  spasm  of  irritation  that  they  instructed  the 
steward  to  dump  down  Joane,  a  patient,  at  the  door  of  her 
friends,  unless  they  paid  up  her  arrears  of  half  a  crown  a 
week  there  and  then.  I  imagine  the  threat  was  sufficient! 
And  often  the  very  existence  of  such  a  hospital  seemed  in 
jeopardy  in  the  years  when  the  city  was  divided  against 
itself,  and  was  being  drained  of  its  resources  alike  by  king 
and  parliament. 

But  you  must  not  imagine  that  even  in  these  "dismal 
times "  there  were  no  little  compensations.  The  Election 
Dinner  (generally  in  August)  attracted  a  company  of  sixty 
or  seventy — not  merely  to  hear  a  "  sermon  by  Calamy  "  or 
other  puritan  divine.  And  there  were  pleasant  little 
"  bienvenus  " — dinners  given  by  new  governors  to  the  court — 
when  a  buck  from  Richmond  or  Windsor  graced  the  board. 
And  occasionally — if  it  were  not  in  1639  I  would  drop  a  tear 
and  blot  out  the  record  of  it  for  ever — some  of  the  city 
worthies  encountered  the  misdemeanours  of  "  basketmen " 
and  the  lavishness  of  apothecaries,  when  they  were  "  intem- 
perate and  overtaken  in  drink."  When  a  member  of  the 
court  failed  to  receive  his  usual  "  ticket,"  or  notice,  he  knew 
that  at  the  last  committee  he  had  been  in  too  hilarious  a 
mood  :  perhaps  he   had   slapped  a  beadle   familiarly  on   the 


PORTRAIT   OF    SIR    GEORGE    WHITMORE. 

(After  Janssen.) 

Sir  G.  Whitmore  (lord  mayor,  1631-2)  was  president  of  Bridewell  and  Bethlem 
and  chairman  of  the  commissions  of  1632  and  1633. 


DANIEL — ANOTHER    PORTRAIT. 

Notice  the  wig  arranged  as  a  background  for  a  very  long  head. 
{See  p.  186) 


To  face  p.2i79. 


THE  LEA  VEN  OF  PURITANISM  179 

back,  or  had  promised  a  fairing  to  one  of  the  ladies  at  the 
hemp-block  in  Bridewell ! 

However,  the  lightest  of  pens  must  not  fail  to  do  justice  to 
the  citizens — whatever  the  ribbons  they  wore  in  their  hats — 
who  found  money  to  balance  the  yearly  deficit,  and  managed 
to  improve  the  condition  of  the  patients,  even  during  the 
Puritan  Revolution. 

For  the  clouds,  which  began  to  gather  round  the  city  in 
1640,  soon  began  to  darken  Bishopsgate. 

In  1641  Charles  I  on  his  return  from  Scotland  had  been 
greeted  by  an  escort  of  devoted  cavaliers  at  the  house  of  our 
president  (Sir  George  Whitmore)  at  Hoxton.  In  their  com- 
pany he  and  his  queen  had  ridden  past  Bethlehem  Hospital 
on  their  way  to  the  Guildhall.  But  within  a  year  Sir  George 
Whitmore  lay  in  a  Bishopsgate  prison  as  a  royalist 
"  malignant,"  the  portcullis  had  been  lowered  at  Bishopsgate, 
and  the  road  over  against  the  hospital  was  fortified  with 
chains  and  posts. 

In  the  presence  of  civil  war  all  credit  and  securities  began 
to  topple.  The  treasurer  of  the  two  hospitals  (Rawlins),  find- 
ing himself  unable  to  "  foot  his  accounts,"  was  forced  to  hand 
over  to  the  governors  the  title  deeds  of  his  mansion  and 
grounds  at  "Fulham";  he  was  indebted  to  Bethlem,  and 
Bethlem  still  enjoys  the  revenues  of  the  estate  at  Shepherd's 
Bush,  as  we  call  it  to-day. 

As  act  after  act  in  the  national  tragedy  was  played  to  a 
close,  the  governors  experienced  more  and  more  difficulty  in 
collecting  the  rents  of  their  houses.  For  example,  the 
royalist  tenant  of  the  house  (the  "  Staple  Hall  "  of  the  Middle 
Ages)  next  the  "  Dolphin  "  was  in  the  hands  of  the  seques- 
trator, and  in  this  case  the  rent  of  two  years  was  irretrievably 
lost.  Again,  some  of  the  tenements  in  the  precincts  of 
Bethlem  (for  which  neither  tenants  nor  money  were  forth- 
coming) were  so  ruinous  that  they  only  served  to  "  harbour 
lewd  and  dangerous  characters."  And  amid  the  sympathetic 
assent  of  the  court  one  of  our  leaseholders  at  Charing  Cross 
successfully  pleaded  as  a  reason  fof  the  "  mitigation  of  his 
covenants "  that  all  houses  in  his  neighbourhood  had  fallen 


i8o     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

at  least  one-half  in  value,  ''  since  the  king  went  from 
Whitehall."  The  speaker,  who  was  the  landlord  of  the 
"  Goat "  tavern,  added,  with  a  spice  of  professional  bitterness, 


%  '^/^' 


A   PLAN   OF   THE   "GOAT       TAVERN, 
CHARING  CROSS. 

The  front  of  the  house  lay  behind  the  statue  of  Charles  I, 
but  a  little  nearer  to  St.  Martin's  Lane  ;  the  stables  and 
yard  at  the  north  end  ran  back  towards  the  National 
Gallery.  Some  friends  of  Pepys  took  rooms  at  the  "Goat" 
to  see  the  coronation  of  Charles  IL 

(From   the  countermart  of  an  eighteenth-century  lease  at 
Bridewell.) 


that   building  (and    customers)   had    been    diverted    to   the 
Covent  Garden  district. 

It   has    been    stated  that    some   of  the   royalist   prisoners 
were  confined  in   Bethlem  after  the  battle  of  Naseby  (June, 


THE  LEAVEN  OF  PURITANISM  i8i 

1645).  It  is,  indeed,  true  that  in  1644  parliament  exempted 
the  royal  hospitals  from  certain  taxes — an  exemption  suc- 
cessfully pleaded  by  our  tenants  in  1649 — on  condition  that 
they  received  sick  and  wounded  soldiers.  But  I  can  find 
no  confirmation  of  this  statement  in  the  court  books,  although 
they  are  eloquent  about  the  damage  done,  or  threatened, 
to  Bridewell  by  disbanded  soldiers  and  prisoners  of  war. 
These  wretches  would  insist  on  "  burning  tobacco  "  as  they 
lay  on  straw  in  a  fireless  basement,  and  the  Great  Hall  had 
already  suffered  from  their  number  and  habits. 

Incidental  references  to  the  years  of  puritanism  and 
revolution  crop  up  in  the  court  books  now  and  again  in  some 
significant  entry ;  the  king's  arms  (we  read)  have  been 
removed,  somebody's  conscience  won't  allow  him  to  extirpate 
episcopacy,  or  a  ballad-singer  has  had  his  cavalier-locks  cut 
short.  And  some  of  the  names  of  those  who  check  the 
bills  at  the  side  table  in  a  Court  at  8  a.m.,  or  distribute 
a  hundred  Bibles  among  the  apprentices,  are  the  names 
of  citizens  who  assented  to  the  death  of  "  Charles  Stuart," 
or  were  deposed  from  their  aldermanry  as  "  enemies  of  the 
Commonwealth,"  such  as  "  Lord  "  Packe,  Sir  R.  Browne, 
and  Alderman  Fowke. 

But  I  can  also,  I  think,  discern  the  leaven  of  puritanism 
at  work  for  good  and  for  evil,  as  I  turn  over  my  notes  for  the 
period  under  review. 

The  highest  ideals  of  puritanism  were  based  on  a  sense 
of  responsibility  to  God  and  His  word,  and  I  trace  the 
influence  of  such  ideals  in  the  governors  who  did  so  much 
to  infuse  humanity,  decency,  and  discipline  into  Bethlem 
between  1644  and  1677.  Our  chronology  seems  to  illustrate 
my  argument. 

In  1643  (June)  the  court  ordered  that  the  hospital  be 
"  enlarged  with  as  much  speed  as  may  be ;  the  governors 
to  meet  and  consider  plans,  to  confer  and  contract  with 
workmen  and  to  oversee  the  works  regularly."  In  the 
course  of  the  following  year  accommodation  was  provided 
for  twenty  additional  patients.  In  1652  ;^5  a  year  was 
assigned,   as    the   wisest    way   of   spending  a  gift  of   £^0, 


1 82     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

for  clothing  in  cases  of  destitution,  and  out  of  this  beginning 
there  grew  in  after  years  a  wardrobe  fund,  which  proved  an 
admirable  form  of  after-care  charity. 

I  pass  by  the  gift  of  ;^ioo  presented  by  the  city  to  the 
hospital  out  of  the  coal  dues  in  1652,  and  come  to  the  year 
(1657)  in  which  Evelyn  strolled  into  the  ward,  v/here  he  saw 
"  prisoners  in  chains,"  after  dining  with  a  noble  friend.  In 
this  year  very  many  of  the  younger  generation,  whose 
puritanism  had  not  been  burnt  into  it,  used  to  amuse 
themselves  on  "  Sabbath  mornings " — till  the  authorities 
scented  the  game — with  an  hour  in  Bethlem,  spent  in 
provoking  the  more  voluble  patients,  and  in  plying  them 
with  drink.  And,  as  the  sands  of  the  Commonwealth 
began  to  run  out,  and  the  taverns  began  to  recover  lost  ground 
and  customers,  it  became  quite  usual  for  the  keepers  of 
Bethlem  to  adjourn — with  tit-bits  from  the  patients'  dinners — 
to  such  taverns  as  the  "White  Hart"  or  the  "  Sun"  for  the 
rest  of  the  day. 

Perpetual  vigilance  and  personal  supervision  are  the  best 
safeguards  against  the  abuses  which  develop  in  public 
institutions,  and  the  governors  set  themselves  to  protect 
the  patients  from  blows  and  insults,  and  their  good  name 
from  discredit,  by  a  system  of  surprise  visits. 

Let  these  two  entries,  which  I  have  transcribed  from  the 
court  books,  testify  to  the  spirit  which  animated  the 
governors  in  their  work,  as  well  as  to  the  practical  wisdom 
with  which  they  encountered  abuses : 

'^  Ordered  that  no  officer  or  servant  shall  give  any 
blows  or  ill-language  to  any  of  the  mad  folks  on  pain  of 
losing  his  place"  (C.b.,  1646,  July  18). 

"  Such  governors  as  can,  or  live  near,  are  entreated  to 
go  as  often  as  possible  to  see  how  the  lunatics  are  used, 
and  how  officers  and  servants  behave  themselves"  (C.b. 
1655,  May  16). 

Two  years  later  than  the  last  entry  I  find  under  12th  June, 
1657:— 

"  Ordered  that  the  porter  keep  the  doors  locked  every 
Lord's  Day  and  days  of  public  fasting  or  thanksgiving  ;  no 


THE  LEA  VEN  OF  PURITANISM 


183 


body  to  enter  on  any  pretence,  except  to  call  in  personal 
assistance  [often  the  flax  dressers  of  the  neighbourhood],  and 
no  strong  drink  to  be  brought  in  except  on  the  orders  of  the 
doctor  ;  and  no  man  to  walk  about,  and  the  men  and  women 
to  be  kept  asunder,  and  the  governors  to  consider  how  best 
the  men  and  women  may  be  lodged  and  kept  asunder." 

It  appears,  then,   that  the  ungodly  still  found  their  way 
into  the  wards  for  an  hour's  sport.     Very  memorable,  how- 


TAVERN   TOKENS. 

Between  1658  and  1668  many  of  the  taverns  in  our  precincts  issued 
tokens  which  served  as  small  change  for  their  own  customers,  but 
were  of  no  value  elsewhere.  There  are  many  allusions  to  the 
"  White  Hart "  in  our  court  books,  which  also  contain  the  name 
of   Ephraim  Clithero,  the  landlord  of  "The  Sunne." 

ever,  are  the  final  sentences  of  the  entry,  for  they  first  moot 
the  suggestion  of  segregating  under  female  supervision  the 
female  patients. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  leaven  of  puritanism  worked  for 
evil,  and  unbalanced  many  minds.  During  the  Protectorate 
the  Bible  was  sometimes  expounded  by  preachers  or  prophets, 
who  were,  or  had  been,  insane.  Or,  if  they  were  sane,  they 
churned   up   in    the   minds   of  their  disciples   those   yeasty 


1 84     THE    STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

surges,  in  which    the    reason    or  common   sense  may  suffer 
shipwreck. 

In  religious  and  political  revivals  forces  are  released,  which 
should  be  kept  imprisoned  in  the  mysterious  abysses  of  human 
personality. 
/  For  example,  George  Fox,  the  founder  of  quakerism,  was 
in  the  "travail"  of  the  insanity  of  adolescence,  when  he  ran  up 
and  down  the  streets  of  Lichfield  barefooted  crying  out — for 
the  frozen  streets  seemed  to  run  blood — "  Woe  to  the  bloody 
city."  In  the  same  year  of  165 1  (and  for  more  than  that 
year)  the  author  of  "  Pilgrim's  Progress  "  was  possessed  by 
religious  insanity  and  its  hallucinations. 

So  far  as  I  can  ascertain,  nobody  has  hitherto  realized  that 
Bunyan  was  insane — in  the  technical  and  medical  sense  of 
the  word — for  three  or  four  years  of  his  life,  say  between  1650 
and  1653.  His  book  "Grace  Abounding"  contains  particulars 
A^'  sufficient  to  fill  up  the  certificate  and  case-book  of  the  mental 
specialist.  It  appears  as  if  Bunyan  had  some  hereditary  pre- 
disposition to  insanity.  "  When  I  was  but  a  child,  about 
nine  or  ten  years  old  (c.  1638),  after  I  had  spent  this  or  the 
other  day  in  sin,  I  have  in  my  bed  been  greatly  afflicted, 
while  asleep,  with  the  apprehension  of  devils  and  wicked 
spirits,  who  still,  as  I  then  thought,  laboured  to  draw  me  away 
with  them." 

He  relates  that  until  his  marriage  (1649)  he  indulged  in  all 
'^  manner  of  "  vice  and  ungodliness  "  with  youths  of  the  village, 
"  cursing,  swearing,  and  playing  the  madman."  His  marriage 
brought  better  elements  into  his  life,  and  it  seemed  to  his 
neighbours  just  as  if  "  Tom  of  Bethlem  "  had  become  a  sober 
man.  Premonitory  symptoms,  however,  of  the  latent  disease, 
manifested  themselves  from  time  to  time,  and  in  165 1  the 
"great  storm  came  stealing"  upon  him,  and  "floods  of  blas- 
phemies"— unprovoked  and  unexpected — overwhelmed  his 
mind.  The  "  unpardonable  sin  "  began  to  have  a  horrible 
fascination  for  him.  He  "  desired  to  commit  it,"  and  soon 
came  to  believe  that  he  had  committed  it.  Sometimes  he 
"felt  the  tempter  pull  his  clothes":  sometimes  the  devil 
seemed  to  "  take  the  form  of  a  bull,  bush,  or  besom,"  inviting 


THE  LEA  VEN  OF  PURITANISM  185 

him  to  fall  down  and  worship  him.  Then  for  a  whole  year 
one  sentence  iterated  and  reiterated  itself  on  the  anvil  of  his 
diseased  brain — "  sell  Christ,"  "  sell  Christ,"  "  sell  Christ." 

"  I  could  neither  eat  my  food,  stoop  for  a  pin,  chop  a  stick, 
or  cast  my  eyes  upon  this  or  that,  but  still  the  temptation 
would  come,  '  sell  Christ,'  '  sell  Christ'  "  The  agitation  of  his 
mind  was  reflected  in  his  restlessness  :  he  could  not  sit  still 
for  a  moment,  nor  occupy  himself  in  any  way.  At  last — in  a 
paroxysm  of  exhaustion — he  seemed  to  himself  to  let  the  fatal 
words  of  surrender  escape  from  his  lips — "  Let  Him  go,  if  He 
will." 

For  two  whole  years  at  least — as  I  understand  the  narrative 
— the  "  masterless  hounds  of  hell  ran  over  his  soul,  roaring 
and  bellowing."  He  had — at  last — committed  the  unpardon- 
able sin  :  he  was  now  racked  day  and  night  with  the  anticipa- 
tion of  descending  before  another  day  had  passed  into  eternal 
torment.  Like  other  victims  of  religipus  melancholia  he 
added  to  his  physical  agitation  and  mental  agony  by  ransack- 
ing the  Scriptures  to  justify  the  appalling  sentence  of  ever- 
lasting damnation  pronounced  against  his  soul ! 

Unfortunately  another  book  in  his  starved  library  did  him 
infinite  mischief.  Francesco  Spira,  a  lawyer  of  Cittadella, 
near  Padua,  became  a  Lutheran,  but  in  an  access  of  terror  in 
1548  was  persuaded  to  make  a  public  recantation  before  the 
Papal  Legate  at  Venice.  He  felt  that  he  was  an  apostate 
from  the  truth,  and  he  soon  believed  himself  to  have,  on  that 
account,  forfeited  for  ever  the  mercy  of  God.  Religious  melan- 
cholia followed  with  suicidal  impulses,  which  baffled  both  the 
theologians  and  the  physicians  of  Padua.  The  story  of 
Spira  was  written  in  Italian  to  prove  the  judgment  of  God 
against  protestantism,  and  was  translated  into  English  by 
Nathaniel  Bacon,  as  a  proof  of  the  falsehood  of  popery  ! 
Neither  the  man  who  translated  it,  nor  Bunyan  who  read  into 
it  an  irrefragable  assurance  of  his  own  damnation,  had  the 
least  idea  that  the  story  of  Francesco  Spira  illustrated  a 
case  of  religious  mania. 

Such  was  the  fiery  trial  which  made  John  Bunyan  what  he 
came  to  be.     Out  of  it  came  the  iron,  dug  in  darkness,  heated 


i86     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

red  hot  in  the  furnace  of  his  afflictions,  tempered  in  the  bath 
of  his  own  tears — which  went  to  the  building  up  of  his 
greatest  work,  the  "  Pilgrim's  Progress." 

The  armour  of  Christian  is  dinted  with  the  marks  of  his 
terrible  conflict  with  Apollyon.  But  it  was  John  Bunyan 
himself  who  could  find  no  firm  ground  under  his  feet  in  the 
slough  of  religious  despondency.  It  was  he  who  had  been  in 
the  iron  cage,  when  he  thought  that  he  had  "  sold  Christ,"  and 
"  committed  the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost."  John  Bunyan 
— and  none  but  he — had  been  through  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death,  before  he  wrote  about  it :  in  it  he  had 
uttered  the  grievous  blasphemies  which  the  fiend  seemed  to 
have  put  into  his  mouth :  on  his  pilgrimage  through  it 
"  clouds  of  confusion "  had  sometimes  settled  on  his  head, 
sometimes  "doleful  voices"  moaned  in  his  ear  or  he  heard  a 
"  company  of  fiends  rushing  and  yelling  "  around  him. 

Christian  was  not  the  only  pilgrim  who  heard  "  Bedlam  " 
shouted  after  him  in  Vanity  Fair. 

The  "  inner  light "  led  George  Fox  into  paths  of  righteous- 
ness and  sobriety  :  with  the  help  of  the  Bible  and  his  theory 
of  the  atonement  Bunyan  climbed  up  out  of  the  mire,  and  the 
burden  fell  from  off  his  back  at  the  foot  of  the  cross. 

But  the  poisonous  fumes,  exhaled  by  the  mystical  treatises 
of  Ranters,  Muggletonians,  and  Fifth  Monarchy  Men,  ate 
away  the  sanity  of  such  men  as  Daniel,  Cromwell's  porter, 
who  was  admitted  into  Bethlehem  Hospital  in  1656.  I  notice 
in  the  court  books  of  that  year  that  Dr.  Nurse  (1648-1667) 
was  asked  to  say  whether  "  Daniel  Curtis  was  really  mad," 
and  possibly  Curtis  was  Daniel's  surname.  I  can,  however, 
find  no  such  name  in  the  archives. 

In  the  course  of  his  studies  in  mystical  divinity  Daniel  had 
collected  quite  a  large  library  of  books  and  pamphlets,  which 
he  was  allowed  to  keep  in  his  cell,  when  his  malady  was 
recognized  as  incurable.  Conspicuous  amongst  these  was  a 
large  Bible  (it  is  curious  how  prone  people  are  to  give  away 
things,  for  which  they  have  no  further  use !)  presented  to  him 
by  Nell  Gwyn. 

The  Rev.  C.   Leslie,  in  his  "  Snake  in  the  Grass "  (1696), 


THE  LEAVEN  OF  PURITANISM  187 

describes    a    visit    paid    to    Daniel,    who    is    mentioned    in 
"  Hudibras  "  as  having  "  filled  Bedlam  with  predestination." 

"  He  could  quote  Scripture  "  (says  Leslie)  "  as  fast  and  as 
little  to  the  purpose  as  either  Fox  or  Muggleton,  nor  did  he 
want  his  disciples.  I  was  one  day  making  a  visit  to  him, 
when  upon  a  grass-plot  before  his  window  at  the  east  end  of 
the  building  I  saw  some  women  very  busy  with  their  Bibles, 
turning  to  the  quotations  with  sighs  and  groans,  as  he 
preached  to  them  out  of  the  window,  I  had  the  curiosity  to 
speak  to  one  of  these  women,  a  grave,  sober-like  matron,  and 
1  asked  her  what  she  could  profit  by  hearing  such  a  fellow. 
She  with  a  composed  countenance,  and  as  pitying  my  ignor- 
ance, replied  that  Felix  thought  Paul  'beside  himself ' — which 
made  me  reflect  what  ill-luck  some  had  to  be  closed  up,  while 
others  were  about  the  streets." 

In  1907  some  works  of  Prior,  the  poet,  were  published  for 
the  first  time  by  Mr.  A.  R.  Waller :  they  had  been  lying  for 
many  years  among  the  manuscripts  at  Longleat.  Among 
them  were  "  Four  Dialogues  of  the  Dead."  One  was  a 
conversation  in  the  next  world  between  Sir  Thomas  More 
and  the  Vicar  of  Bray — a  very  tantalizing  situation — and 
another  between  Cromwell  and  his  porter,  Daniel. 

Cromwell,  finding  himself  very  much  "jostled  and 
affronted  by  a  hundred  cavalier  ghosts,"  turns  for  sympathy 
to  a  neighbouring  shade.  "  By  the  length  of  his  ear,"  mutters 
the  astonished  Protector,  as  he  looks  more  closely  at  him, 
"  and  the  sullenness  of  his  brow,  it  should  be  my  old  porter." 
So  indeed  it  was,  but  a  porter  who  is  as  good  a  man  as,  nay 
a  better  man  than,  his  master,  and  with  some  old  scores 
to  pay  off. 

"  From  a  porter  I  raised  myself  to  be  a  prophet.  I  was 
the  senior  inhabitant  of  old  Bethlem,  prince  of  the  planets, 
and  absolute  disposer  of  everything.  I  excommunicated,  or 
blest,  as  I  thought  proper,  and,  when  the  palace  of  Bethlem 
was  on  fire,  I  forbade  the  people  to  quench  the  flames,  and 
told  them  the  day  of  judgment  was  come,  and  unconcerned 
I  read  on." 

Oliver  affects  to  pooh-pooh  the  grandiose  rhetoric  of  his 


1 88     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

former  servant  as  the  emanation  of  the  crazy  brain  of  a  man 
who  had  been  "  so  many  years  locked  up  in  a  little  cell  with 
no  other  furniture  but  the  torn  leaves  of  three  or  four  Bibles." 
"  I  was,  indeed,  mad,"  rejoins  the  imperturbable  Daniel. 
"  For  that  matter  every  mortal  man  is  more  or  less  mad — 
when  he  is  in  love,  for  example,  when  he  becomes  a  miser, 
but,  most  of  all,  when  he  is  ambitious.  Your  madness,  how- 
ever, was  worse  than  mine,  for  you  set  the  world  on  fire. 
Men  bring  even  to  this  place  some  germs  of  their  former 
madness,  and  the  truth  is — between  friend  and  friend,  you 
know — that  you  are  very  far  gone,  and  you  must  take  a 
course  of  Lethe  waters  for  six  months  at  least." 


CHAPTER  XXII 

LAST   YEARS   IN    THE  OLD   HOME 

The  citizens  found  to  their  cost  that  civil  war  was  bad 
for  trade  :  they  could  not  make  any  money,  and  what  they 
had  made  was  draining  away  in  loans  and  taxes.  Their 
young  people,  moreover,  had  no  love  for  puritanism,  and 
sighed  for  the  maypole,  the  playhouse,  and  the  Christmas 
frolic. 

Everything  was  ripe  for  change,  and  the  restoration  of 
Charles  II  was  inevitable,  when  Lady  Monck  paid  a  visit  to 
Bethlehem  Hospital  in  the  February  of  1660,  and  received  an 
address  from  one  of  the  ''  phanatiques,"  who  thus  "  bespoke 
her  to  the  life  "  :— 

"  Most  noble  lady,  now  we  see 
The  world  turns  round  as  well  as  we. 
Whilst  you  adorn  this  place  we  know 
No  greater  happiness  below, 
Than  to  behold  the  sweet  delight 
Of  him  that  will  restore  our  right. 
Let  George  know  we  are  not  so  mad. 
But  we  can  love  an  honest  lad." 

On  29th  May  in  the  same  year  her  husband  (George 
Monck)  restored  the  king,  and  Charles  II  passed  through  the 
city  to  Whitehall  along  streets  strewn  with  the  flowers  of 
spring.  The  winter  of  the  national  discontent  had  vanished 
before  the  rising  sun  of  the  Stuarts  :  it  was  spring,  and  the 
joy  of  spring  for  everybody.     The  minute  books  are  missing 


190     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

between  August,  1659,  ^'^d  J^^Xj  1662  :  perhaps  the  court 
was  too  excited  to  sit,  or  the  clerk  to  record  the  proceedings, 
during  these  eventful  years ! 

With  the  autumn  of  1662  came  the  anniversary  of  the 
foundation  of  the  hospital,  and  once  more  (I  doubt  not)  on 
St.  Luke's  Day,  five  days  before  it,  mimic  king  and  queen 
and  court  issued  forth  in  procession,  with  horns  on  their  heads, 
from  the  taverns  in  Bethlehem  on  their  way  to  Horn  Fair 
and  its  ribaldries  at  Charlton,  near  Deptford. 

And  some  months  later — at  Christmas — the  governors 
made  an  earnest  attempt  to  grapple  with  a  recurring  scandal, 
appointing  a  matron  to  take  charge  of  the  female  patients  in 
a  ward  by  themselves. 

"  The  distracted  women  to  be  continually  kept  from  the 
distracted  men  there,  and  a  discreet,  careful  and  able  single 
woman  to  be  provided  to  take  care  of  the  distracted  women. 
She  may  call  to  her  help  any  one  or  more  of  the  men 
servants,  when  she  cannot  rule  any  distracted  woman 
herself." 

Unfortunately  the  first  two  matrons  misbehaved  them- 
selves, and  the  experiment  was  for  the  time  abandoned, 
the  porter's  wife  being  restored  to  her  traditional  place, 
and  the  men  servants  having  access,  as  before,  to  all  the 
cells. 

The  physician,  under  whose  reign  the  women  were 
first  segregated,  was  Dr.  Thomas  Nurse.  He  had  a  great 
practice  after  the  Restoration  in  Westminster,  and  was 
buried  12  June,  1667,  in  the  eastern  cloister  of  the 
Abbey. 

Pepys,  who  was  a  governor,  sails  into  the  court  books  in 
the  year  1662.  A  hearth-tax  of  two  shillings  a  chimney 
threatened  the  hospital  and  the  shivering  patients,  for  no  fire 
was  to  be  lit  there,  except  in  the  kitchen.  However,  the 
secretary  to  the  Admiralty  interceded  with  the  farmers  of 
the  tax,  and  the  charity  was  for  the  time  exempted  from 
payment. 

There  are  many  allusions  in  his  diary  (or  shall  we  call  it 


LAST   YEARS  IN  THE   OLD  HOME        191 

his  confessions  ?)  to  governors,  physicians,  patients,  and 
others,  whose  names  are  written  on  many  pages  of  the  court 
books.  Among  his  most  intimate  friends,  for  instance,  were 
the  Huguenot  Houblons,  merchants  who  used  their  wealth  in 
our  service  as  well  as  in  financing  William  III  against 
France ;  and  Pepys  has  some  scornful  remarks  to  make 
about  Sir  W.  Bolton,  who  was  expelled  by  our  governors 
from  the  Building  Committee  for  making  some  disparaging 
remarks — justified  by  events,  I  must  admit — about  the 
mortar  and  materials  of  the  new  hospital.  Dr.  Thomas 
Allen,  physician  of  Bethlem  from  1667  to  1684,  was  another 
acquaintance  of  the  diarist,  who  records  how  he  often 
walked  in  the  park  with  him,  or  sat  in  a  coffee-house  dis- 
cussing with  him  the  action  of  something  very  like  the 
dynamite  of  to-day. 

In  the  precincts  of  Bethlem  lived  the  scrivener  of  Mr. 
Pepys,  and  one  of  our  tenants  there  kept  a  book-shop,  which 
had  an  unholy  fascination  for  the  connoisseur.  Here  Pepys 
was  "  turning  over  some  Spanish  books,"  and  had  indeed 
"  pitched  upon  some,"  when  he  "  remembered  his  oath,"  and 
flung  himself  out  of  temptation.  The  taverns  at  Charing 
Cross,  associated  with  our  history,  also  figure  in  the  diary. 
It  was  at  the  "  Chequers  "  that  instead  of  his  own  "  dull 
jade  "  he  hired  a  "  handsome  and  high-spirited  horse,"  but  the 
music  and  the  cavalry  of  a  review  upset  the  sobriety  of  the 
animal.  And  it  was  at  the  "  Goat "  tavern  previously  men- 
tioned that  he  spent  many  a  merry  hour  with  friends  and 
colleagues  over  a  pint  or  two  of  wine.  The  "  Goat " 
(formerly,  according  to  a  lease  of  ours,  "  Martin's  "  tavern) 
stood  on  hospital  property,  and  there  are  many  references  to 
it  in  the  court  books  and  leases  at  Bridewell.  It  appears 
from  them  that  the  inn  had  a  frontage  of  some  20  feet  south 
on  "  Charing  Cross  Street,"  and  that  it  ran  back  towards  the 
Great  Mews  (say,  the  National  Gallery)  in  the  form  of 
"  drinking  rooms  and  stables."  Baker,  the  landlord, 
petitioned  the  governors  to  grant  him  a  lease  on  easy  terms, 
as  he  had  just  laid  out  most  of  his  ready  money  in  a  "  stock 


192     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

of  French  wines."  The  court  inchned  an  indulgent  ear  to 
his  prayer :  perhaps  they  had  already  tasted  his  claret,  or 
because  Baker  had  held  aloof  from  the  attempts  made  at  law 
by  his  fellow-tenants  to  dispute  the  title  of  the  hospital. 

In  1665  the  Great  Plague  traced  many  a  red  cross  in 
Bishopsgate,  and  opened  so  many  graves  in  its  ancient 
cemetery,  that  bones  and  coffin  boards  lay  scattered  about 
the  ground,  and  the  taint  of  corruption  hung  over  the  sultry 
streets. 

Our  patient,  Daniel,  is  credited  with  prophecies  of  the 
Plague  and  the  Fire,  and  it  may  have  been  he  who  saw  in 
the  changing  forms  of  cloud  an  angel  in  white  unsheathing 
the  sword  of  pestilence  over  a  guilty  city. 

But  in  those  dread  months  there  were  many  who  saw  the 
angel  of  the  book  of  the  Revelation  emptying  his  vials  of 
wrath.  From  the  casement  in  the  porter's  lodge,  Matthews 
and  Millicent,  his  wife,  must  have  watched,  day  after  day, 
a  half-naked,  demented  creature  running  up  and  down  the 
street.  He  would  enter  into  speech  with  nobody,  but  just 
iterated,  and  re-iterated,  without  ceasing — "  Oh !  the  great 
and  terrible  God,"  "  Oh !  the  great  and  terrible  God." 

There  is  a  chasm  in  the  registers  of  St.  Botolph's,  as, 
indeed,  in  the  court  books  of  Bridewell,  and  I  can  furnish  no 
evidence  of  the  mortality  in  our  precincts.  But,  perhaps,  the 
angel  of  death,  so  often  for  our  sufferers  the  angel  of  mercy, 
did  throw  open  the  doors  of  the  prison-house  of  Bethlem 
with  the  benediction  : — "  The  Lord  hath  had  mercy  on  thee, 
and  thee,  and  thee :  depart  in  peace." 

The  *'  fierce  and  lamentable  fire  "  of  London  swept  through 
Bridewell,  devouring  the  rooms  in  which  king  and  queen, 
cardinal  and  captains  once  had  moved  :  unfortunately  it 
spared  Bethlem  and  its  ruinous  tenements.  Indeed,  Bishops- 
gate  ward  was  hardly  scorched — thanks  mainly  to  Pepys, 
according  to  Pepys.^  However,  Matthews,  our  porter,  pre- 
pared for  the  worst,  and  removed  all  that  was  movable 
to  a  place  of  safety  :  for  his  forethought  and  pains  he  was 
awarded    i^4  by    a   grateful  court.     Imagine  the  panic  and 


LAST    YEARS  IN   THE   OLD  HOME         193 

confusion  in  Bethlem  on  that  Wednesday  morning  (5th  Sep- 
tember, 1666),  till  an  east  wind  carried  the  flames  westward 
— tenants  pouring  out  of  overhanging  wooden  houses  with 
furniture  and  clothes,  and  patients  stubbornly  struggling 
with  their  rescuers  ! 

For  three  years  after  the  Fire  of  London  the  court  was 
obliged  to  sit  at  Bethlem,  and  their  clerk,  whose  books  were 
kept  at  Shepherd's  Bush,  was  provided  with  rooms  in  the 
hospital.  In  one  of  these  years  plate  to  the  value  of  ^100 
was  presented  to  the  treasurer  Gethin  (1654- 1672)  by  his  col- 
leagues, who  loved  the  man  and  appreciated  his  devotion. 
He  lived  in  Islington — quite  a  journey  by  coach  from  Smith- 
field — but  he  was  at  the  hospital  two  or  three  times  a  week 
for  eighteen  years.  During  these  years  the  governors  were 
of  necessity  brought  into  much  closer  touch  with  the  hospital, 
and  realized  more  vividly — with  a  new  London  rising  up 
around  them — the  inadequacy  of  its  accommodation.  Partly, 
perhaps,  as  a  result  of  their  experience,  they  passed  a  resolu- 
tion on  24th  January,  1674,  that  the  "  hospital-house  was 
old,  weak,  ruinous,  and  so  small  and  strait  for  keeping  the 
great  number  applying  for  admission  that  it  ought  to  be 
removed  and  rebuilt  elsewhere  on  some  site  grantable  by 
the  city." 

Long  after  I  had  written  the  manuscript  of  this  book  I  dis- 
covered a  contemporary  plan  of  this  "  hospital-house  "  while 
rummaging  in  one  of  the  tin  boxes  at  Bridewell.  It  turned 
out  to  be  the  actual  "  map  or  plan  annexed "  to  a  lease 
granted  by  the  hospital  i6th  March,  1678,  to  one  William 
Bates  of  "  all  that  old,  ruinous,  and  decayed  building,  lately 
called  the  hospital  of  Bethlem."  The  muniment-room  has 
not  yielded  up  anything  more  valuable  than  this  plan,  for 
it  traces  out  for  us  the  foundations  of  the  first  Bethlehem 
Hospital  and  its  annexes.  Indeed — with  the  help  of  the 
court-books — I  shall  be  able  to  distinguish  the  original, 
perhaps  the  ancient,  "  prison-house  of  Bethalem  "  from  later 
additions.  Many  of  the  details,  to  which  I  have  attached 
letters,  must^  no  doubt,  be  accepted  as  purely  conjectural, 

H 


194     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

but  you  may  wander  through  the  house,  or  rather  houses, 
with  some  confidence,  inasmuch  as  the  court  books  have  been 
studied  by  your  guide. 

Instead  of  walking  down  Liverpool  Street  imagine  that 
you  are  walking  down  the  "  long  entry  "  or  "  long  walk  of 
the  '  White  Hart,' "  through  the  precincts  of  a  vanished  con- 
vent. It  is  paved  with  freestone  (at  any  rate  in  1656),  and 
is  some  seven  feet  wide.  About  one  hundred  and  forty  feet 
from  the  old  gateway  of  the  liberty  (the  entrance  to  Liver- 
pool Street)  you  will  find  your  road  intersected  by  a  cross- 
path,  some  four  feet  wide.  Follow  this  for  a  few  yards  north 
and  you  will  reach  the  lodge  of  the  hospital  porter.  He  will 
admit  you — if  you  put  your  "  footing  "  into  the  "  servants' 
box  "  in  the  space  marked  "  E."  Opposite  the  latter  you 
will  notice  the  only  indication  of  a  fireplace.  This  must 
have  been  the  only  fireplace  in  the  institution,  for  under 
a  minute  of  1663  the  governors  ordered  that  only  one  fire 
was  to  be  kept  up  "  at  the  expense  of  Bethlem,"  and  it  was 
to  be  in  the  kitchen — "  unless  the  treasurer  and  any  of  the 
governors  want  a  fire  in  the  parlour  for  themselves."  At  this 
one  fireplace  the  patients  got  what  warmth  they  could  on 
wintry  days,  but  much  of  their  time  they  spent  under  the 
straw.  The  northern  promontory  of  the  sketch  shows  us  the 
barn  where  the  straw  was  stored,  and,  farther  on,  the  fur- 
nace where  the  soiled  straw  was  burnt :  over  the  straw-barn 
was  a  room  for  drying  clothes. 

We  will  now  explore  what  I  will  call  the  northern  block, 
the  western  block,  and  the  southern  block,  which  appear 
to  have  formed  three  sides  of  a  parallelogram.  The 
western  and  southern  blocks  were  houses  three  storeys  high, 
and  were  arranged  for  the  accommodation  of  the  patients 
and  their  keepers  on  a  similar  scale.  On  the  ground  floor 
there  seems  to  have  been  a  corridor  (perhaps  "  C  ")  with  bed- 
rooms (perhaps  "  D  ")  for  several  patients  opening  into  it. 
On  the  second  floor  there  was  accommodation  for  eight 
patients,  and  the  male  keepers  slept  in  the  attics.  I  have 
found  no  descriptive  details  of  the   northern  block  in  the 


LAST    YEARS  IN   THE   OLD   HOME         195 

court  books,  but  it  appears  to  have  contained  cells  as  well 
as  offices.  Under  19th  July,  1669,  the  court  book  alludes 
to  "  that  part  of  the  hospital  the  last  built  northwards." 
Perhaps  these  were  the  "  new  buildings,"  to  which  twenty 
of  the  worst  female  cases  were  transferred  in  1662.  We 
know  from  the  minutes  that  the  western  block  was  built  in 
1644  by  order  of  the  court  of  aldermen  on  the  site  of  "  two 
old  and  ruinous  tenements,"  which  brought  in  little  rent  to  the 
governors. 

There  is  now  nothing  but  the  southern  block  left  to  receive 
its  date  and  descriptive  label.  Well :  this  must  be  the  original 
"  house  or  hospital  of  Bethalem,"  of  1555  and  1632,  "where 
the  poor  distracted  people  lie  " :  the  ward  of  1403  with  its 
six  patients  no  doubt  stood  on  the  very  same  ground.  I 
wavered  a  good  deal  before  I  asked  my  friend,  Mr.  Arrow, 
to  write  the  word  "  yard  "  in  the  space  between  the  northern 
and  southern  blocks,  but  it  seems  to  answer  to  the  "  yard  " 
into  which  the  patients  threw  many  undesirable  things  before 
their  windows  were  grated. 

I  found  a  view  of  the  "  hospital-house "  in  the  "  exact 
survey"  of  London  made  by  W.  Hollar  in  1667  after  the  Fire 
of  London  :  it  shows  us  three  blocks  of  buildings  occupying 
(as  in  our  plan)  three  sides  of  a  parallelogram.  But  he  has 
drawn  the  long  wards  as  running  north  and  south,  whereas 
it  is  certain  from  the  measurements,  boundaries  and  other 
details  given  in  the  lease  that  they  ran  east  and  west 
for  two  hundred  feet.  In  the  illustration  Hollar's  plan  has 
been  reproduced  by  Mr.  Arrow  as  Hollar  drew  it,  but  on  a 
somewhat  larger  scale. 

It  was  necessary  to  obtain  the  permission  of  the  king  for 
the  removal  of  the  hospital  from  Bishopsgate  to  Moorfields 
nor  might  the  ancient  site  of  this  "royal  peculiar"  be 
retained  for  revenue  without  his  consent.  The  signature 
of  Charles  II  was  obtained  without  demur  or  delay  to  a 
warrant,  sought  in  proper  form. 

The  city  was  also  just  as  ready  and  anxious  to  help 
Bethlehem  Hospital  as  in  1346.     Accordingly,  on  9th  October, 


196     THE   STORY  OF   BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

i6y4,  Sir  W.  Turner  (president  of  Bethlehem  and  Bridewell) 
was  able  to  deliver  to  the  governors  a  lease  of  certain  land  on 
the  City  Ditch — seven  hundred  and  twenty  feet  east  to  west 
from  the  postern,  Blomfield  Street  of  to-day,  to  Moorgate, 
which  may  be  considered  as  situated  at  the  junction  of 
London  Wall  and  Finsbury  Pavement ;  the  breadth  of  this 


VIEW   OF   BETHLEHEM   HOSPITAL  IN    1667. 

(Drawn  by  Mr.  Raines  Arrow  after  the  sketch  by  W.  Hollar.) 
{Seep.  195.) 

slip  of  land  was  eighty  feet  from  London  Wall  northward. 
The  lease  was  to  run  for  999  years,  from  Michaelmas  Day, 
1674,  at  a  quit-rent  of  a  shilling  a  year,  and  the  land  was 
given  on  the  condition  that  it  should  be  used  for  no  other 
purpose  than  that  of  a  lunatic  asylum — a  condition  which 
afterwards  proved  embarrassing. 

The  governors  chose  as  the  architect  of  the  new  hospital 


LAST    YEARS  IN   THE   OLD  HOME        197 

one  of  the  most  remarkable  men  of  his  age.  Robert  Hooke, 
the  son  of  a  clergyman  in  the  Isle  of  Wight,  was  born  at 
Freshwater  in  1635.  Passing  through  Westminster  School 
into  Christ  Church,  Oxford,  he  found  his  way  into  the  society 
of  Boyle,  Wilkins,  and  other  men  of  science,  and  was  em- 
ployed by  Christopher  Wren  in  drawing  and  colouring  on  a 
larger  scale  than  that  of  life  various  objects  for  the  microscope. 
Through  the  influence  of  Boyle  he  was  selected  in  1662  as 
the  first  curator  of  the  Royal  Society,  of  which  he  afterwards 
became  the  secretary.  He  was  appointed  some  three  years 
later  to  the  professorship  of  mathematics  at  Gresham  College, 
and  after  the  Fire  of  London  served  as  one  of  the  city 
surveyors,  who  assisted  Wren  to  rebuild  the  capital.  When 
Hooke  died,  there  was  found  in  his  rooms  at  Gresham  College 
an  iron  chest  which  contained  some  thousands  of  pounds 
in  gold  and  silver.  It  is  probable  that  he  amassed  this 
fortune  during  his  surveyorship — by  fees  and  by  speculation. 
He  had  intended  to  leave  it  to  the  Royal  Society,  but  he  died 
without  executing  a  will. 

Those  to  whom  the  name  of  Robert  Hooke  is  at  all 
familiar,  know  him  only  as  one  of  the  most  brilliant  of  his 
contemporaries  in  natural  and  experimental  sciences,  in  which 
he  appears  to  have  anticipated  Newton  and  his  successors. 
But  he  was  also  a  great  architect,  whose  name  would  have 
descended  side  by  side  with  that  of  Wren,  had  he  worked  on 
anything  like  the  same  scale  and  with  the  same  publicity. 
He  appears  to  have  designed  houses  for  many  merchants  and 
noblemen,  but  his  reputation  must  rest  on  his  design  of 
Bethlehem  Hospital.  Curiously  enough,  Evelyn — one  of 
his  most  intimate  friends — is  silent  about  his  masterpiece, 
which,  however,  Aubrey  assigns  to  him.  But  the  court  books 
enable  us  to  follow  every  stage  of  his  work  from  the  paste- 
board model  which  he  made  of  the  hospital  to  his  acceptance 
of  a  gift  of  ^200  from  the  governors,  with  their  warmest 
thanks,  on  its  completion.  After  years  of  sickness  and 
suffering,  during  which  he  grew  more  and  more  of  a  miser, 
he  died  on  3rd  March,  1703,  and  was  buried  three  days  later 


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LAST    YEARS  IN  THE   OLD   HOME        199 

in  the  church  of  St.  Helen's,  Bishopsgate,  where  the  Greshams 
and  other  benefactors  of  ours  rest  after  their  labours  of  love. 
"  Mr.  Hooke/'  says  Pepys,  recalling,  perhaps,  his  crooked, 
emaciated  figure,  "  is  the  most,  though  he  promises  the  least, 
of  any  man  I  know  " — an  epigram  which  shall  be  the  epitaph 
of  a  forgotten  genius.  - 


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CHAPTER   XXIII 

THE    PALACE    BEAUTIFUL 

Bethlehem  Hospital,  the  second,  was  built  on  the  city 
moat  at  the  edge  of  Moorfields.  Deeper  far  than  its 
foundations  lay  the  culvert  and  pottery  of  the  Romans, 
who  drained  the  moor  and  fen.  In  the  Middle  Ages  it 
was  once  more  a  marsh,  dappled  with  sheets  of  water, 
over  which,  when  frozen,  skimmed  the  apprentice  on  primi- 
tive skates  of  bone.  In  the  seventeenth  century  it  was  a 
favourite  promenade  of  the  citizens  on  summer  evenings, 
and  the  site  of  the  hospital  (represented  to-day  by  Fins- 
bury  Circus)  was  occupied  by  the  homeless  after  the  Fire  of 
London. 

The  hospital  was,  without  exaggeration,  a  palace  beautiful, 
which  excited  the  admiration  of  contemporary  culture  and 
of  foreign  visitors.  Evelyn — and  he  was  a  connoisseur — 
considered  it  "  very  magnificent,"  and  Thomas  Jordan,  the 
laureate  of  the  city,  introduced  a  lusty  psean  to  the  glory  of 
the  "  structure  fair,  royally  rais'd  "  into  the  pageant  of  Lord 
Mayor  Davies  in   1676. 

; 

"  This  IS  a  structure  fair, 
Royally  raised  ; 
The  pious  founders  are 
Much  to  be  praised, 

That  in  such  time  of  need, 
When  sickness  doth  exceed, 
Do  build  this  house  of  bread 
Noble  New  Bedlam. 


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THE  PALACE  BEAUTIFUL  203 

'Tis  beautiful  and  large 

In  constitution ; 
Deserves  a  liberal  charge 
Of  contribution. 

If  I  may  reach  so  high 
To  sing  a  prophecy, 
Their  name  shall  never  die 
That  built  New  Bedlam." 


French  and  German  Guide  Books  of  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries  may  be  sarcastic  about  English  eccen- 
tricity or  the  stench  in  parts  of  the  hospital,  but  they  are 
unanimous  in  praising  the  grandeur  of  the  design  and  the 
spaciousness  of  the  galleries  and  cells. 

The  verdict  of  these  centuries  has  been  unhesitatingly 
endorsed  in  the  nineteenth  century  by  such  authorities  as 
J.  T.  Smith  (Keeper  of  Prints  and  Drawings,  British  Museum) 
and  by  James  Elmes,  the  author  of  some  standard  "  Lectures 
on  Architecture  "  (1823). 

Such  testimony — the  testimony  of  people  who  had  actually 
seen  what  they  admired — should  be  conclusive,  and  we  may 
approach  even  an  engraving  of  the  palace-hospital  in  an 
enthusiastic  mood.  I  propose,  however,  if  my  readers  will 
accept  me  as  a  guide,  not  only  to  study  the  beauty  and  warmth 
of  the  exterior,  but  also  to  make  a  tour  of  the  building  and 
its  grounds.  But,  before  we  start  to  explore  yard  and  hall 
and  gallery,  let  me  ask  those  who  accompany  me  to  turn  to 
the  earliest  engraving  of  "  New  Bedlam,"  which  I  have 
reproduced  for  this  chapter. 

It  was  executed  by  Robert  White,  a  popular  and  industrious 
artist  of  the  last  half  of  the  seventeenth  century.  He  pro- 
duced at  a  court  of  governors  held  in  August,  1677,  the 
"  brass  plates  "  which  he  had  been  commissioned  to  make  for 
the  sum  of  ^40 ;  artists  (his  masters  considered)  are  not  men 
of  business,  and  so  these  merchants  paid  the  money  in 
instalments,  upon  security  taken,  and  after  certificates  of 
accuracy.  The  court,  however,  was  so  pleased  with  the 
work  that  they  presented  copies  to  Charles  II  and  the  duke 
of  York  :    the  whole  of  the  original  edition  was  distributed 


204     THE    STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

amongst  the  governors,  the  metal  plates  being  handed  over 
to  the  clerk  "to  make  the  best  advantage  he  can  out  of 
them." 

The  clue  to  the  date  of  an  engraving  is  the  name  of  its 
publisher.  You  will  notice  that  our  engraving  was  "  printed, 
coloured,  and  sold  by  John  Garrett  at  his  shop  next  the 
Exchange  Stairs  in  Cornhill  "  :  the  British  Museum,  there- 
fore, dates  it  about  1690.  On  the  other  hand,  the  label  on  the 
print  in  the  house  physician's  room  condemns  it  to  the  date 
of  1758.  The  erasures  in  the  copy  at  present  in  the  office  of 
the  clerk  of  the  works  also  indicate  a  late  date. 

I  have,  however,  had  the  luck  to  discover  in  the  Print 
Room  of  the  British  Museum  a  unique  drawing  executed  by 
John  Dunstall  (fl.  1644- 1690).  It  represents  the  entrance 
gates  of  the  hospital  in  their  original  form  as  iron  bars  set  in 
a  wooden  frame.  I  am  tempted  to  assign  to  the  drawing  a 
date  before  1680.  A  photograph  of  this  drawing  should  be 
found  on  the  walls  of  one  of  the  wards. 

In  front  of  the  hospital  (please  unfold  the  illustration 
before  we  begin  our  round)  ran  a  long,  straight  wall  pierced 
by  the  entrance  gates  and  by  three  apertures  of  open  iron- 
work (afterwards  filled  up)  on  either  side  of  them  at  regular 
intervals. 

Four  steps  led  up  to  the  large  gates,  which  swung  from 
stone  piers,  and  there  were  wicket  gates  for  visitors  on  either 
side  of  the  double  gates. 

On  the  piers  of  the  wicket  gate  the  lion  and  the  unicorn 
of  the  Stuarts  ramped  in  defence  of  Charles  II  and  of  a 
loyalty  so  sorely  tried  at  that  time  by  loans  and  exactions. 
Over  the  stone  piers  of  the  great  gate  sprawled — after  the 
fashion  of  Michael  Angelo's  "  Night  and  Morning "  in 
Florence — the  colossal  statues,  which  were  intended  to 
represent  two  phases  of  mental  disorder.  The  chained 
figure  is  drawing  in  his  breath  and  about  to  bellow  forth 
words  of  anger  and  menace  :  he  is  an  example  of  acute 
mania.  The  vacancy  of  the  face  on  the  left  suggests  the 
general  paralysis  of  all  energies,  which  precedes  dissolu- 
tion   in    the    general    paralysis    of  the   insane.     Cromwell's 


1^       .'       ,    H  •        "*H!f»W 


THE    ENTRANCE. 


DEMENTIA   AND    ACUTE    MANIA. 


To  face  p.  204. 


FEMALE   AND    MALE    FIGURES   WITH    ALMS   BOXES. 
The  money,  dropped  into  the  slot  of  the  vessel,  descended  into  the  pedestal. 


To  f.ice  p.  205. 


THE   PALACE   BEAUTIFUL  205 

porter — so  runs  the  tradition — was  the  model  for  the  figure 
in  chains. 

These  statues,  carved  out  of  Portland  stone,  were  the 
work  of  Caius  Gabriel  Gibber,  father  of  Golley  Gibber, 
the  actor  and  dramatist.  In  their  day  they  were  considered 
"  first  in  conception,  and  only  second  in  execution  among 
all  the  productions  of  English  sculptors."  I  have  found 
no  reference  to  them  in  the  court  books,  but  the  Dictionary 
of  National  Biography  assigns  1680  as  the  date  of  their 
erection. 

Passing  through  the  gate  into  a  forecourt  of  grass  plots 
and  paved  walks,  we  will  pause  to  get  a  general  idea  of 
the  style  and  details  of  the  architecture,  which  was  novel 
in   1675. 

Sir  Ghristopher  Wren  was  in  Paris  in  1665  studying 
French  architecture,  and  I  am  tempted  to  conjecture  that 
he  handed  over  his  drawings  to  his  friend,  Robert  Hooke. 
At  any  rate  the  design — a  break  in  the  monotony  of  the 
classical  work  of  Wren — was  inspired  by  French  models, 
and  was  carried  out  in  red  brick  with  freestone  dressings. 
There  was  (you  will  see  by  the  illustration)  a  '^  French 
pavilion  "  in  the  centre  with  turret,  cupola,  and  dragon-vane, 
and  there  were  similar  pavilions  at  the  east  and  west  ends, 
which  were  united  to  the  centre  by  the  galleries  of  the 
inmates.  At  each  end  of  the  building— at  that  period — 
was  a  high  walled  court,  in  which  the  patients  took  their 
daily  exercise. 

Four  semicircular  steps  led  up  to  the  principal  entrance 
under  the  iron  balcony.  Beyond  the  door  were  the  "  Penny 
Gates,"  where  the  visitor  put  his  penny  or  twopence  into  the 
quaint  money-boxes,  which  stood  in  a  niche  on  either  side  of 
the  gates.  The  boxes  were  really  figures  of  gypsies  begging 
with  vessels  slotted  to  receive  money.  They  appear  to  have 
been  made,  as  well  as  painted  blue — the  livery  of  Bethlem 
— at  the  cost  of  Gharles  Foot,  a  merchant,  to  whom  the 
green  staff  of  a  governor  was  presented  on  4th  October, 
1676.  These  "  figures  for  the  poor's  box "  in  their  time 
earned    thousands  of  pounds  for  charity,  and  I  hope   they 


2o6     THE    STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

will    be  saved    from  the  carpenter's  shed  or   the   engineer's 
fires  ! 

In  charge  of  the  "poor's  box"  stood  the  porter  (Matthews) 
in  his  gown  of  blue  cloth,  holding  his  "  good  large  staff," 
the  silver  head  of  which  was  beautifully  chased,  as  in  the 
illustration.  On  20th  October,  1676,  Mr.  John  Kendall, 
a  governor,  received  the  thanks  of  the  court  for  the  "porter's 
staff  and  plates  about  the  same,"  but  it  would  appear  from 
the  inscription  that  it  was  not  actually  executed  till  1682. 

Possibly  this  unaccountable  delay  was  caused  by  the 
demand  of  our  jealous  sister,  Bridewell,  for  something  just 
as  good — or  better.  No  doubt  the  unhappy  donor  sur- 
rendered to  tears,  if  not  to  taunts,  and  made  his  peace  with 
Bridewell  by  presenting  her  with  a  staff,  identical  in  design, 
but  larger,  of  course,  and  more  valuable.  It  must,  however, 
be  admitted,  that  Bridewell  has  taken  more  care  of  her  gift 
than  we  have,  for  some  forty  years  ago  the  Bethlem  staff- 
head  fell  from  the  top  of  an  omnibus,  and  it  is  now  the  worse 
for  wear — and  repairs  ! 

Throughout  our  history  the  porter  lies  under  the  suspicion 
of  taking  toll  of  the  visitors'  fees  for  admission  :  anyhow 
he  never  had  change  when  it  was  wanted.  This  is  the 
latent  humour  or  warning  of  the  superscription,  which  used 
to  implore  the  visitor  to  "  put  his  money  into  the  box 
with  his  own  hands."  In  the  committee-room  at  Bethlem 
there  is  a  stately,  portly  piece  of  furniture,  finely  carved, 
which  served  in  the  eighteenth  century  to  allure  donations 
from  the  wealthy.  On  three  sides  it  bears  the  legend,  "  Pray 
remember  the  poor  lunaticks,  and  put  your  charity  into  the 
box  with  your  own  hands." 

The  passage  of  the  "  Penny  Gates  "  opened  out  into  a 
large  hall,  right  and  left  of  which  on  each  storey  were  the 
entrances  to  the  galleries  :  later  on,  as  in  Hogarth's  picture, 
gates  of  open  iron-work  served  to  keep  the  most  violent 
patients  in  their  proper  place.  To  the  right  of  the  hall 
at  its  north  end  was  the  office  of  the  steward  ;  and  to  the 
left  was  the  room  where  the  physician  and  apothecary  saw 
patients  on  their  admission  and  discharge. 


THE  PALACE  BEAUTIFUL 


207 


Around  the  hall  were  marble  tablets  in  memory  of  bene- 
factors, linked  by  cherubs'  heads  in  Grinling  Gibbon  style, 
and  from  the  back,  or  south  of  it,  a  staircase  ascended 
to  the  court  room,  where  the  "  committee  for  Bethlem  " — 
henceforth  a  body  of  power  and  importance — met  on 
Saturdays. 

In  the  court  room,  which  had  an  ornamental  ceiling  of 
plaster,  were  fireplaces  east  and  west.  Over  the  chimney- 
piece  on  the  west  hung  an  ancient  portrait  of  Henry  VIII, 
and  on  the  south  side  of  the  room,  at  a  later  date,  a  "  portrait 


THE  ARMS  OF   HENRY  VIII   AS   PRESERVED   IN 
BETHLEHEM   HOSPITAL. 


of  Sir  W.  Turner  at  an  advanced  age  "  :  over  the  eastern 
chimney-piece  were  the  "  arms  of  England  surmounted  by 
the  initials  R.  H.  inscribed  above  them."  At  this  end  there 
were  also  "  two  large  drawings  in  Indian  ink  representing 
the  north  elevation  and  the  plan  of  the  first  floor " — 
presumably  the  drawings  which  Hooke  proposed  to  in- 
corporate into  White's  engraving. 

Round  the  walls  hung,  as  in  the  modern  committee  room 
the  arms  of  the  presidents  and  treasurers  of  the  united 
hospitals  from   1557. 


2o8     THE    STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

The  court  room  looked  northward  through  three  large 
windows  on  Moorfields,  the  centre  window  leading  on  to 
an  iron  balcony,  on  the  face  of  which  was  painted  the 
arms  of  the  city,  of  the  hospital,  and  of  the  presidents. 
Let  me  note  here  that  a  fortnight  earlier  the  governors 
did  not  know  whether  Bethlehem  Hospital  had  any  coat 
of  arms,  and  asked  one  of  their  colleagues  (Withy,  heraldic 
painter)  to  consult  with  Sir  W.  Dugdale,  Garter  king  of 
arms.  It  is,  therefore,  to  him  that  we  owe  in  our  present 
shield  the  hideous  skull,  which  has  replaced  the  chalice 
and  the  Host.  It  is  significant  (I  think)  of  ignorance  rather 
than  bigotry  that  there  are  so  few  allusions  in  the  old 
histories  of  London  to  the  mediaeval  origin  of  the  ministry 
which  Bethlem  has  carried  on  among  mental  sufferers,  at 
least  from   1377. 

On  either  side  of  the  balcony  window,  and  within  the 
court  room,  depended  the  arms  of  Charles  II  and  of 
Henry  VIII,  which  were  ordered  by  a  minute  of  30th 
March,  1677,  to  be  "made  and  painted."  Is  this  coat  of 
arms  identical  with  that  over  the  fireplace  in  the  committee 
room  of  the  present  building,  or  is  it  "  the  arms  of  England 
surmounted  by  the  initials  R.  H."  which,  as  J.  T.  Smith 
was  informed,  came  from  the  Bishopsgate  hospital?  I 
should  consider  the  evidence  of  the  minute  as  final  were 
it  not  that  the  Tudor  arms  show  no  signs  of  painting  or 
gilding.- 

I  believe,  however,  that  J.  T.  Smith — an  expert  in 
pictures — is  right  in  saying  that  our  ancient  portrait  of 
Henry  VIII  was  transferred  from  Bishopsgate  to  Moorfields. 
The  original  of  this  portrait,  as  I  have  discovered,  is,  or  was, 
at  Warwick  Castle,  and  its  authenticity  as  a  Holbein  has 
never  been  challenged.  Waagen,  who  sees  in  the  eyes  the 
"  suspicious  watchfulness  of  a  wild  beast,"  considers  that 
the  picture  "  shows  transition  from  the  second  to  the  third 
manner  of  Holbein  "  :  he  therefore  dates  the  painting  about 
1530.  In  that  case  a  copy  of  it  might  have  been  made 
for  George  Boleyn,  brother-in-law  of  Henry  VIII  and 
master  of  the    hospital   from   1529   to   1536,   or   for   Peter 


FIG.    I. 


FIG.    2. 


The  staff-head  is  encircled  with  the  acanthus  leaf  in  silver  chasing.  In  the  upper  part  of  it  appear 
the  arms  of  the  City  (i\g.  i)  of  Sir  W.  Turner,  and  of  the  hospital  (fig.  2).  Below  the  silver  thread 
may  just  be  discerned  the  arms  of  the  donor  (fig.  i).  The  staff-head  is  crowned  with  a  silver 
medallion,  bearing  on  one  side  the  royal  arms  of  the  Stuarts  (fig.  i),  and  on  the  reverse  the  lion 

and  dragon  of  the  Tudors  (fig.  2). 


To  face  p.  208. 


THE  PALACE  BEAUTIFUL  209 

Mewtys,  a  confidential  agent  of  the  same  king,  and  master 
of  Bethlem  (i  536-1 546). 

I  was  the  first  to  identify  the  "  portrait  of  Sir  W.  Turner 
at  an  advanced  age  "  with  the  picture — so  long  unidentified 
— in  Mr.  Worsfold's  room  at  Bridewell.  It  was  painted 
by  Lanskroen,  a  native  of  Flanders,  who  worked  under 
Verrio  for  seven  or  eight  years  at  Windsor  Castle,  probably 
between  1683  and  1688.  A  minute  of  the  General  Com- 
mittee under  nth  October,  1841,  records  the  resolution  that 
the  portrait  of  Sir  W.  Turner,  a  former  president,  painted 
by  Lanskroen,  be  removed  from  Bethlem  Hospital,  and 
placed  in  the  court  room  at  Bridewell  Hospital. 

To  right  and  left  of  the  entrance  hall  on  both  storeys 
were  the  galleries  of  the  patients,  out  of  which,  as  in  the 
present  building,  opened  the  cells,  or  bedrooms,  of  the 
patients.  The  bedrooms  were  larger  (as  the  gallery  was 
broader)  than  the  present  type,  but  were  only  provided 
with  narrow,  unglazed  windows  high  up  in  the  wall  at  the 
back  (or  south)  of  the  building.  In  these  cells  most  of 
the  patients  were  shut  up  with  their  dreams  and  passions 
(it  must  be  remembered  that  acute  or  dangerous  cases 
were  preferred),  except  when  they  were  taking  the  air  in 
the  yards.  Presumably  these  yards  were  gravelled,  for  on 
one  morning  the  male  patients  managed  to  do  eight  shillings' 
worth  of  damage  by  throwing  stones  at  a  neighbour's 
windows  ! 

Some  patients  were  allowed  the  "  liberty  of  the  gallery," 
but,  as  a  rule,  the  galleries  were  reserved  for  visitors,  who 
amused  themselves  by  looking  through  the  hatches  of  the 
cell  doors,  and  in  bandying  unsavoury  jokes  with  the  in- 
mates of  the  cells. 

Cowley,  the  poet,  has  left  us  some  thoughtful  comments 
on  the  scenes  of  drink  and  disorder  which  he  witnessed  on 
visiting  days  in  his  "Several  Discourses"  (1668):  ''I  re- 
turned not  only  melancholy,  but  sick  with  the  sight.  To 
weigh  the  matter  justly,  the  total  deprivation  of  reason 
is  less  deplorable  than  the  total  depravation  of  it  in  the 
thousands  I  meet  abroad." 

15 


210     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

On  26th  July,  1676,  it  was  ordered  that  the  men  should 
occupy  the  lower  gallery,  and  the  women  the  upper  gallery 
and  "  not  to  be  suffered  to  lodge  promiscuously " :  after- 
wards the  east  wing  was  set  apart  for  the  male  patients. 
The  staff  occupied  some  of  the  attics  in  a  central  pavilion, 
the  kitchen  and  other  offices  being  in  the  basement :  the 
other  basements  were  let  to  the  East  India  Company  for 
the  storage  of  pepper. 

BETHLEHEMS  BEAUTY 
LONDONS  CHARITY, 

AND  THE 

CITIES  GtORY, 

A  Panegyrical  Teem  on  that  Magmficent  Stmaare^^  lately 

Ereded  in  Moorfelds,  vulgarly  <^lled  N^?©  Bedlam. 

iHumbly  Addreft  tp  tbe  Honourable  TVIafter,  Gavernours,  and  other 
•  Noble  BenefaBsrs'joi  tliat  Splendid  and  moft  ufeM  Hofpital, 

Xicenied  Septemkr  j6,  i^'iS.    ^oger  V Strange. 


S 


To^  no  Eiore  fhall  Aotient  fdriiis  boaft,  M  And  comes  fo  Pvr^,  'the  Sfintt  to  Refine* 

Tine  mould'ting  Pyimidt  on  Ejgnis coaH^  Wk  As  if  ^'  wife  Gavernouf s  nad  »  Defigne 

Soi't  van  Cehfai,  or  ibofc  migrrty  Things  m  TTfaat  Thould  «lonc,  without  Phpd  Reifore 

Which  with  Montlitf  npbraiacd  Kingt.'.  W'  Thofe  whom  Ortfi  Vapows  difcompos'd  before.j 

^.   All  thcfc  could  but  vaiftOftentgiion  yield,  ^  Bat  tbis  Costeit  h  fhfltd  by  their  Cire^ 

•Whilft  we  for  Vf(  and  Chantj  do  Bmld.  Wi  The  bcft  ©f  Artt  'Afii^aiKt  to  prepare. 

When  I^  N  D  0  N  did  in  Fuatrd  Afkts  lie  ^  What  eVe  QaleiiUk  or  Sermttid  Skill 

'Bus  Ten  years  fince,  "Re  Gntf  of  tvety  Eye,  ^  Offeri  in  Natures  Aid,  ij  ready  rtiH, 

Whfte  DrfiUtitn  Ttiasn^'d  in  etch  Streetf             '  w  Convenient  £>/<i*f  liberally  beflow'd, 

•■■---          if.  (^  A-j -ti  ^„,.  «.f,,  c„m  ritn^  fo  fijiit:Al!av»y»' 


Within  six  weeks  of  the  opening  of  the  palace  hospital 
a  ballad-writer  produced  a  broad-sheet  of  a  hundred  lines 
in  his  "  Bethlehem's  Beauty,  London's  Charity,  and  the 
City's  Glory,"  which  sparkles  with  playful  allusions  to  the 
foibles  of  its  inmates.  The  press  mark  will  be  found  in 
the  museum  library  under  the   title  "  Bethlehem   Hospital." 

Such  a  paradise,  he  fears,  will  encourage  "  exaltation " : 
it   will  make  everybody  half  mad — to    be  a  lodger  there  : 


THE  PALACE  BEAUTIPUL  nt 

there  is  such  comfort  and  "  convenient  diet  "  (very  lowering, 
with  a  staple  of  pottage,  the  chronicler  may  add).  The 
very  air,  winnowed  through  the  trees  of  Moorfields,  will 
restore  the  mind  without  physic.  None  have  reason  there — 
to  complain  ! 

In  the  ballad  one  of  the  patients  is  "  railing  at  Rome  "  : 
this  looks  like  Cromwell's  porter,  Daniel.  Another  is 
making  an  almanac — doubtless  freighted  with  famine,  plague, 
and  fire.  "  Immoderate  studies  and  pinching  poverty  " 
have  filled  the  cells.  One  of  a  group  of  university  scholars 
at  the  time  was  John  Thamar,  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College, 
Cambridge :  he  is  described  in  literary  sketches  of  the  day 
as  a  musician,  and  a  Cambridge  organist.  Six  shillings  a 
week — more  than  the  average  fee — was  paid  by  the  College 
for  him  "  for  dyet  and  attendance  during  his  stay  in  the 
hospital  of  New  Bethlem  for  the  cure  of  his  present  dis- 
traction besides  allowance  for  a  bedel,  according  to  the 
custom  of  the  place  and  appointment  of  the  governor." 
Other  University  scholars  were  Francis  Wordis  and  John 
Shaxton.  They  were  allowed  clothing  as  "  having  no  friends 
and  no  means." 

But  the  topical  poet — to  get  a  market  for  his  wares — 
must  tickle  the  hearts  of  the  sentimental  and  romantic. 

"  One  fancies  still  his  cruel  mistress  by  : 
Th'  other  upbraids  her  friend's  inconstancy. 
He  weaves  straw  bracelets,  which  he  calls  her  hair, 
And  she  o'er  th'  wall  writes  letters  to  her  dear. 
Th'  only  true  lovers  now-a-days  are  here." 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

PRESIDENT,   PEER,  AND  PATIENT 

According  to  the  inscription  in  its  entrance  hall  the  actual 
building  of  the  new  hospital  was  completed  within  the  short 
space  of  fifteen  months,  between  April,  1675,  ^.nd  July,  1676. 
A  century  or  so  later,  when  it  began  to  stagger  under  the 
burden  of  its  roof,  the  surveyor  reported  that  it  had  been 
run  up  too  hastily,  and  that  the  bricks  used  were  inferior 
and  unseasoned.  The  quality  of  the  materials,  it  may  be 
noted,  was  challenged  at  the  time,  "  a  governor  reporting 
that  the  mortar  was  not  good  enough."  In  consequence  of 
this  criticism  the  city  surveyor  (Oliver)  and  several  other 
experts  were  asked  to  examine  the  work  already  done. 
Their  report  was,  on  the  whole,  favourable  :  the  bricks  were 
good  and  the  workmanship  was  good,  if  the  "  mortar  was 
rather  lean."  On  the  strength  of  this  report  the  governors 
came  to  a  decision  on  4th  December,  1674,  to  remove  Sir 
W.  Bolton  from  the  Building  Committee,  considering  that 
his  remarks  had  "  wronged  the  committee  and  the  brick- 
layer" (Fitch).  In  an  audible  aside  they  also  observed  that 
"  such  a  matter  should  not  be  blazoned  abroad." 

Sir  W.  Bolton  was  not  the  kind  of  man  to  take  his 
punishment  without  kicking,  or  even  scratching,  and  I  have 
no  doubt  that  the  governors  had  received  some  provocation 
before  23rd  December,  1674,  when  they  expelled  him,  not 
without  some  nasty  interjections. 

"  He  has  obstructed  and  retarded  public  business  by 
false  and  scandalous  reflections  on  other  governors  without 
just   or    reasonable    cause,   and    he    has    been    notoriously 


PRESIDENT,   PEER,  AND  PATIENT        213 

troublesome  and  vexatious  to  the  public  government  for  his 
own  private  and  sinister  ends." 

Sir  W.  Bolton  slinks  through  the  pages  of  Pepys  as  a 
lord  mayor  suspected  of  having  stolen  some  of  the  money 
subscribed  for  the  benefit  of  the  sufferers  in  the  Great  Fire  : 
he  was  convicted  in  1675  o^^  such  a  count.  He  is  the 
only  instance  of  a  lord  mayor  of  London,  reduced  at  the 
close  of  his  career  to  accept  a  compassionate  allowance  of 
£'iy  a  week  from  the  city.  But,  after  all,  Sir  W.  Bolton  was 
right  about  the  bricks! 

It  is,  perhaps,  possible  to  date  the  migration  of  the  staff 
and  patients  from  their  old  to  their  new  home  as  taking 
place  in  the  last  week  of  July,  1676.  For  on  the  21st  of 
that  month  the  court  ordered  that  fifteen  new  bedsteads 
should  be  made  for  certain  patients  "  before  their  removal," 
and,  as  appears  by  the  registers  of  St.  Stephen's,  Coleman 
Street,  the  first  burial  from  the  new  building  took  place  on 
2nd  August. 

This  was  the  burial  of  "  Thos.  Tymes,  the  first  lunatic  in 
New  Bedlam  buryed." 

The  total  cost  of  "New  Bedlam"  was  ;^  17,000,  and  the 
money  was  raised  partly  by  donations  and  partly  by  loans. 
The  loans  were  paid  off  in  the  course  of  a  few  years — so 
golden  were  the  sands,  over  which  our  history  flowed  then, 
and  for  many  a  year.  Churchmen  and  dissenters  might  be 
fighting  one  another  with  poisoned  weapons,  but  the 
charitable  of  both  sides  met  at  the  hospital,  as  on  neutral 
ground,  for  the  common  cause  they  had  at  heart.  For 
example,  the  Fowke  estates  in  Great  Tower  Street  came 
from  the  son  of  a  republican  mayor,  but  Sir  John  Moore, 
whose  name  appeared  in  the  benefaction  tables  for  ;^5oo, 
was  a  partisan  of  Charles  II.  And  as  for  Lord  William 
Craven,  equally  ready  to  help  a  discrowned  queen  or  a  burnt- 
out  tradesman,  he  could  always  spare  Bethlem  a  "  bag  of 
gold  "  on  an  emergency. 

There  is  every  reason,  however,  to  believe  that  the  second 
hospital  would  not  have  been  built  on  a  site  presented  by 
the  City,  or  with  such  magnificence,  had  it  not  been  for  the 


214     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

enthusiasm  and  generosity  of  Sir  William  Turner,  president 
of  the  associated  hospitals,  1669  to  1689,  and  from  1690  to 
1693.  No  good  cause  ever  appealed  to  him  in  vain,  and 
many  of  the  donations  and  legacies,  which  fell  into  the  lap 
of  the  hospital,  were  directly  traceable  to  his  influence. 

As  lord  mayor  he  was  a  man  who  paid  as  high  a  salary 
to  his  cook  as  to  his  chaplain,  and  he  was — a  circumstance 
which  allowed  him  to  be  charitable  and  to  die  rich — a 
bachelor.      Accordingly   his  year   of    office    (1668-9)     was 


^^-«^'£5z'B  UbQ:iMcl0 


\0::i}} 


M 


FROM  A  PAGE  OF  SIR  W.  TURNER  S  LEDGER. 

Each  page  is  headed  with   the  words  "  Laus  Deo"  (Praise  be  to  God).    According  to  the 
Sfedator  (No.  509)  the  draper's  motto  was,  "  Keep  to  your  shop  and  your  shop  will  keep  you." 

signalized  by  the  splendid  entertainments  which  he  twice 
gave  to  the  bachelors  of  the  city.  Two  scribblers  of  the 
year,  who  describe  these  costly  feasts,  unite  in  lavishing  upon 
him  verses,  which  might  secure  a  patron  and  a  market,  but 
neither  of  them  can  refrain  from  slinging  provocative 
remarks  against  the  creed  to  which  he  does  not  himself 
subscribe.  The  sworn  foe  of  episcopacy  is  delighted  to 
think  that,  while  the  bishop  of  London  wears  a  beard,  the 
mayor  shaves. 


PRESIDENT,   PEER,  AND  PATIENT        215 
Quite  unnecessarily,  however,  he  interjects  the  remark  : — 

"  Bedlam  and  Bishop's  Gate  near  neighbours  are." 

The  champion  of  the  Church,  who  has  the  advantage  of 
writing  later,  retorts  with  an  episcopal  Roland  for  a  dissent- 
ing Oliver  : — 

"  Still  may  all  those  that  sneer  at  Bishop's  Gate, 
Feel  an  eternal  Bedlam  in  their  pate  ! " 


%. 


Y     !V'^'^- 


>  *.    -;.-  '  of  } 


The  lord  mayor  amassed  his  original  fortune  out  of  a 
draper's  shop  in  St.  Paul's  Churchyard.  Pepys,  a  connection 
of  his  by  marriage,  was  also  a  customer ;  it  was  at  his  shop 
that  he  bought  some  very  fine  raiment. 

"  It  will  cost  me  money,  but  I  must  go  handsomely,  what- 
ever it  cost  me,  and  the  charge  will  be  made  up  in  the  fruit 
it  brings." 

The  son  of  a  tailor  must  advertise  the  trade  ! 

Sir  William  Turner  died  on  the  morning  of  9th  February, 
1693.  There  is  still  preserved  in  his  native  village  (Kirk- 
leatham,  Yorkshire)  the  waxen  effigy  of  the  deceased 
alderman  which,  dressed  as  in  life,  would  have  been  carried 


2i6     THE    STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPTTAL 

in  his  funeral  procession.  You  may  also  disinter  at  the 
British  Museum  a  brace  of  broadsides  (an  elegy  and  a  satire) 
which  would  have  been  hawked  round  the  streets. 

The  elegy  is  an  indiscriminate  eulogy  of  the  epitaph  type  : 
it  was  Turner  who  rebuilt  London  after  the  Fire  :  it  was 
Turner,  churchman  and  member  of  parliament  for  the 
city,  who  recovered  for  London  her  liberties,  and  their 
fortunes  for  her  orphans.  But  the  satire  on  the  austerity 
of    the    magistrate    (it    is    entitled    "  Knock,    Sir  William, 


<     mh  h 
i     t  t 

tl  1,  I  1    } 


<n    1, 


/  '       I    I  t     y  !    <  It    C     |1>  I       'Jl! 


Knock  ")  is  a  very  clever  and  amusing  specimen  of  literary 
craftsmanship. 

It  should  be  explained — to  bring  out  the  full  flavour  of 
the  allusions — that  it  was  Sir  William's  duty — he  seems  to 
have  also  felt  it  his  privilege — to  commit  to  Bridewell  the 
"  Black  Madges "  and  "  Country  Besses  "  of  the  street,  and 
to  preside  over  their  flogging.  When  he  thought  that  a 
sinner  had  received  her  deserts,  he  let  his  uplifted  hammer 
fall,  and  the  poor  wretch  ceased  to  shriek  out,  "  Knock,  Sir 
William,  knock." 

The    author    of    the   "  Lamentation " — darting   here   and 


PRESIDENT,   PEER,   AND   PATIENT        217 

there  with  his  lance  of  a  pen — is  sure  that  such  a  flogging 
alderman  must  have  been  born  when  the  Scorpion  and  the 
Dragon  were  in  conjunction  in  the  heavens — a  presage  that 
he  was  to  wield  barbed  tails,  and  thongs,  and  whips.  How- 
ever, Death,  the  common  beadle,  has  at  last  arrested  the 
judge  himself,  and  tied  up  that  terrible  hammer-hand. 
Merchants  and  citizens  are  lamenting  the  death  of  the  presi- 
dent of  Bridewell,  and  it  would  be  strange  if  the  frail  sister- 
hood failed  to  drop  a  tributary  tear,  for  he  never  suffered 
their  tears  to  cease  from  flowing.  But  naturally  enough 
their  fervent  prayer  is  that  he  may  leave  no  successor  to 
inherit  his  "  mantle  and  a  double  portion  of  his  flogging 
spirit." 

And  then  the  graceless  wit  makes  his  exit  with  a  grimace 
and  a  mock  bow  to  Bridewell : — 

"  Oh,  Bridewell  !     what  a  shame  thy  walls  reproaches. 
Poor  Molls  are  whipp'd,  while  rich  ones  ride  in  coaches." 

In  the  first  year  or  two  of  the  new  hospital's  existence 
curious  crowds  of  visitors  used  to  gather  in  front  of  it,  and  in 
the  Whitsun  holidays  of  1677  quite  a  serious  riot  flared  up 
all  in  a  moment  just  outside  the  four  steps,  which  then 
ascended  to  the  entrance  gates. 

By  following  up  one  clue  after  another  I  discovered  in  the 
British  Museum  a  contemporary  narrative  of  this  disturbance, 
plentifully  peppered  with  the  capitals  and  italics  of  disgust 
and  indignation.  The  author  of  "  Bedlam  Broke  Loose," 
lays  so  much  emphasis  on  the  "  pious  education "  which 
young  Lord  Gerard  had  received,  and  his  spluttering  wrath 
is  barbed  with  such  wit  and  learning,  that  I  smell  the  breath 
of  a  nobleman's  tutor. 

It  appears  that  Digby,  Lord  Gerard,  who  was  in  his 
fifteenth  year,  and  was  a  lad  of  "  natural  sweetness  of 
temper,"  drove  out  in  his  coach  with  his  mother  to  visit  the 
hospital.  A  strapping  virago  happened  to  be  standing  on 
the  steps,  and  in  an  unfortunate  moment,  when  asking  her 
to   allow   him   to  enter,   he    addressed    her   as   "  my   good 


2i8     THE   STORY  OF   BETHLEHEM   HOSPITAL 

woman."  No  viler  innuendo — such  was  the  degradation  of  so 
polite  or  so  charitable  a  phrase — could  have  been  uttered, 
and  the  lady,  whose  face  was  a  "  landscape  of  Bridewell  and 
Newgate,"  without  further  parley  planted  a  damaging  blow 
upon  the  young  lord's  nose,  her  husband  pressing  forward  to 
thrust  him  down  the  steps.  To  protect  himself  Lord  Gerard 
drew  his  "  little  sword,"   and  the   porter — we   are  asked   to 


1 


'A  Kx^Xif  V.  h^t'i 


N  -   .  • 


tm'Ufflu 


•■''  ? 


believe—"  heedlessly  met  it,"  at  a  tender  point  in  his  brawny 
paunch. 

Shouts  of  "kill  him,"  "knock  him  on  the  head,"  "tear 
them  to  pieces  "  greeted  the  catastrophe,  and  the  coach  was 
bombarded  by  a  mob  with  brickbats,  a  rescue  party  of  con- 
stables being  swept  away  in  the  tumult.  However,  Sir  W. 
Turner  managed  to  get  Lord  Gerard  and  his  mother  dragged 


PRESIDENT,  PEER,   AND  PATIENT        219 

into  his  house,  and  the  "  Bedlamis'd  multitude "  gradually 
melted  away. 

The  "  brute  with  stomach  but  without  brains "  (his  name 
no  less  than  his  nature  was  Noise)  was  not  much  the  worse — 
as  a  day  or  two  proved — for  his  irregular  blooding,  and  the 
author  of  the  narrative  was  driven  to  confess  that  the  people 
within  Bethlem  are  often  not  so  bad  as  those  without. 

This  is  our  boast  at  Bethlem  to-day,  for  many  are  the 
uncaught ! 

So  much  for  president  and  peer  ;  let  the  patient  now  be 
brought  into  court. 

In  the  court  books  under  29th  November,  1678,  occurs  the 
following  entry : — 

"  To  this  court  was  brought  Mr.  James  Carcas,  who  hath 
been  kept  about  six  months,  and  petitioning  the  court  that 
he  may  be  discharged,  as  he  allegeth  that  he  is  recovei^ed 
to  hjs_  right  mind  and  reason.  It  appears  to  the  court 
that  he  is  not  now  distracted,  and  several  of  his  relations 
being  present,  and  not  able  to  satisfy  the  court  that  he 
is  void  and  discomposed  of  his  senses,  or  that  he  is  fit 
to  be  any  longer  in  Bethlem,  it  is  ordered  that  he  be  dis- 
charged." 

There  is  a  story  and  a  book  behind  this  entry.  It  has 
been  reserved  for  me  to  find  flesh  and  blood  for  the  skeleton 
in  the  bodies  of  Mr.  Pepys  and  Mr.  Carcasse. 

James  Carcasse  or  Carkesse,  one  of  the  clerks  in  the 
Ticket  Office,  had  issued  duplicate  tickets  for  seamen's 
wages,  and  had  committed  other  irregularities  at  the  Navy 
Office,  which  were  not  unremunerative  to  him  and  to  others. 
Mr.  Pepys,  although  his  own  hands  were  not  very  clean, 
determined  to  purge  the  public  service  of  a  scandal  and  of 
a  "  cunning  knave."  On  his  report  the  duke  of  York  ordered 
the  dismissal,  and  recommended  the  punishment,  of. Carcasse, 
who  was  in  the  end  dismissed. 

When  we  hear  of  him  ten  years  later  he  is  in  Bethlehem 
Hospital,  posing  as  a  "  minister  of  God's  most  holy  Word." 
It  does  not — believe  me — follow  that  he  had  any  right  to  the 
title,  for  he  was  in  an  acute  stage  of  religious  exaltation,  and 


220     THE    STORY  OF   BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

felt  that  his  words  and  his  acts  were  inspired  by  the  "heavenly 
fire,  born  in  Bethlehem." 

During  his  captivity  he  wrote  a  little  volume  of  poems 
("  Lucida  Intervalla"),  in  which  he  attributed  his  dismissal 
from  the  Navy  Office  to  the  design  of  Providence,  that  he 
should  "reduce  Dissenters  to  the  Church." 


"  I'm  a  minister  of  God's  most  holy  Word  : 
Have  taken  up  the  gown,  laid  down  the  sword. 
Him  I  must  praise,  who  open'd  hath  my  lips, 
Sent  me  from  Navy  to  the  Ark  by  Pepys. 
By  Mr.  Pepys,  who  hath  my  rival  been 
For  the  Duke's  favour  more  than  years  thirteen. 
But  I  excluded,  he  high,  fortunate  ; 
This  Secretary  I  could  never  mate. 
But,  Clerk  of  th'  Acts,  if  I'm  a  parson,  then 
I  shall  prevail  :   the  voice  outdoes  the  pen." 


Notice  that  he  rhymes  "  Pepys "  with  "  lips,"  and  twice 
treats  the  name  of  the  diarist  as  a  monosyllable. 

It  took  a  coach  (the  windows  of  which  he  broke)  and  a 
strong  escort  to  remove  him  to  the  hospital.  On  his  admis- 
sion he  was  consigned  to  the  "hole,"  where  no  doubt  he 
scrawled  some  of  his  libels  against  "  Cerberus,"  the  porter 
and  head  attendant,  on  his  door  with  chalk.  Here,  "delicate 
and  balmy,"  he  lay  in  the  straw  "  like  a  fly  in  amber,"  but 
was  afterwards  transferred  to  a  room  with  unglazed  windows. 

The  physician  of  the  hospital — in  our  profession  we  expect 
at  the  beginning  more  kicks  than  ha'pence — is  the  St. 
Sebastian,  against  whom  the  arrows  of  "Lucida  Intervalla" 
are  directed.  Dr.  Thomas  Allen  is  honourably  mentioned 
in  the  history  of  his  times  for  refusing  to  allow  his  patients 
to  be  experimented  on,  but  to  Carcasse  he  is  nothing  better 
than  a  "mad  quack,"  and  nothing  worse  than  a  "dissector  of 
an  oyster."  One  fact  new  to  me  I  gathered  from  the  author's 
lampoons,  viz.,  that  Dr.  Allen  had  also  an  interest  in  a  private 
asylum  at  Finsbury — "  he  haunts  both  Bedlams  like  a  louse." 

"  Pot "  and  his  searching  emetics  also  receive  lyrical  casti- 
gation.     "  Pot "    is    the   "  careful    and    diligent "  apothecary 


PRESIDENT,  PEER,  AND   PATIENT        221 

Jeremy  Lester,  upon  whom  the  infirmities,  of  .his  prede- 
cessor threw  the  work,  if  not  the  emoluments,  of  the  place 
for  many  years. 

Many  of  Carcasse's  lines  contain  allusions  to  fellow-patients. 
Cromwell's  porter  was  one  of  his  colleagues  in  Moorfields  : 
another  was  the  "humorous  lieutenant"  who  had  a  mania 
for  buying  up  every  likeness  of  the  king  he  could  find.     I 


Lucida  Intervalla ; 

Containing  divers 


Written  at 

Finsbury  and  Bethlem 

BY  THE 

Dodors  Patient 

EXTRAORDINARY 


-i^y    H9jm.s,      Coci.f^j$z 


- — femelhfanmjnas  omnes. 


LONDON, 
Printed  Anno  Dom.  16  ^^ 


am  inclined  to  identify  him  with  one  "Thomas  Dun,  mariner." 
In  his  case  the  Council  of  State  in  a  letter  of  25th  January, 
1667,  gave  special  orders  that  he  was  "  not  to  be  beaten,  but 
to  be  treated  as  well  as  the  hospital  can  afford." 

Every  day  except  Sunday  was  a  visiting  day,  and  Car- 
casse,  who  was  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar,  held  quite  a 
lev^e  for  his  acquaintances  among  the  quality.  The  duke 
of  Grafton  asked  him  how  he  did.     He  rallied  the  duchess  of 


222     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

Portsmouth  and  Nell  Gwyn  on  the  favours  of  Charles  II, 
but  expressed  a  preference  for  Nelly,  because  she  was  a  pro- 
testant.  Many  of  his  visitors  whom  he  named  were  ladies  of 
the  court,  or  the  city.  They  threw  into  his  cell  a  sixpence, 
some  apricots,  a  wig,  or  some  writing  materials,  and  each 
donor  received  in  return  a  poem — graceful  and  flattering — 
indited  in  her  honour. 

Carcasse  dedicated  his  "  Lucida  Intervalla"  to  Charles  II. 
The  king  is  the  Noah  of  the  ark  (the  Church)  which  has 
saved  England.  May  he  protect  his  humble  suitor  from 
"  further  storms,"  and    guide    him    into    a  "  quiet   station  !  " 

Perhaps,  after  all,  Carcasse  made  his  peace  with  Fepys, 
and  sometimes  sailed  into  his  hospitable  anchorage  on 
Clapham   Common. 


THE    FUNERAL    EFFIGY    OF   SIR    W.    TURNER. 


THE   SOUTH-WEST   CORNER    OF    THE    SECOND    HuSPITAL, 

1814. 

To  face  p.  222 


CHAPTER  XXV 

A  DEVOTED  PHYSICIAN 

In  his  "  Holy  War"  Bunyan  relates  how  Diabolus,  when  he 
took  possession  of  Mansoul,  replaced  the  mayor  and  cor- 
poration by  partisans  of  his  own.  The  author  had  seen 
the  corporations  of  Bedford  and  other  towns  packed  with 
burgesses,  who  might  be  trusted  to  return  to  parliament 
none  but  the  nominees  of  the  court.  The  same  policy  was 
pursued  by  Charles  II  in  the  city  of  London,  when  in 
1683  eight  aldermen  of  dissenting  principles  were  unseated 
in  favour  of  as  many  churchmen,  and  the  royal  hospitals 
placed  under  control  of  the  king's  commissioners.  In  the 
case  of  Bethlehem  Hospital  all  the  governors  were  continued 
in  office  with  the  exception  of  Benjamin  Du  Cane,  treasurer 
from  1672,  who  had  5th  December,  1683,  to  surrender  his 
books  and  keys  to  Daniel  Baker,  the  father-in-law  of  the 
chronicler,  Narcissus  Luttrell.  Another  victim  of  religious 
tests  was  the  butcher,  whose  "conscience,"  tender  as  his 
meat,  "did  not  permit  him  to  go  to  church." 

Benjamin  Du  Cane  belonged  to  the  Huguenot  family  of 
Du  Quesne  which  had  fled  to  Canterbury  from  the  perse- 
cution of  Alva.  His  services  to  the  hospital  had  already 
received  the  recognition  of  his  colleagues,  who  presented 
him  in  1677  with  two  silver  flagons  of  the  value  of  ;^40 
for  his  "  extraordinary  pains  and  care "  during  the  re- 
building of  Bethlem.  One  of  these  flagons — the  work  of 
Robert  Cuthbert,  goldsmith  and  a  governor — is  still  in  the 
possession  of  C.  H.  C.  Du  Cane,  Esq.,  who  was  recently 
offered  ;^  1,000  for  a   piece   of  plate   so  well  authenticated. 

It  bears  the  inscription  set  forth  in  the  minutes. 

223 


224     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

In  1688  it  suited  the  designs  of  James  II  to  pay  court  to 
the  dissenters  and  to  give  them  office,  and  so  it  came  to 
pass  that  Du  Cane  spent  the  last  two  years  of  his  Hfe  in 
the  duties  he  had  so  conscientiously  discharged. 

There  are  other  echoes  of  these  see-saw  times  in  the  court 
books.  In  1688,  for  example,  just  after  the  landing  of 
William  III,  Sir  W.  Turner  was  removed,  by  Whig 
influences,  from  his  aldermanry  and  from  the  presidency  of 
Bridewell  and  Bethlem.  Two  years  later,  however,  he  was 
elected  a  member  of  parliament  for  the  city  in  the  interests 
of  the  Church  and  Toryism,  his  re-election  as  president 
taking  place  a  few  months  later. 

From  1683  to  the  accession  of  William  III  all  appoint- 
ments were  made  by  the  Royal  Commissioners.  The  most 
memorable  of  their  appointments  was  that  of  Edward  Tyson, 
who  visited  the  hospital  as  its  physician  from  1684  to  1708. 
He  was  one  of  those  who  poured  out  the  best  they  had  to 
give  upon  the  heads  of  our  stricken  folk,  and  a  statue 
of  this  reformer  and  benefactor  shall  occupy  a  niche  in 
this  chapter. 

It  so  happens  that  he  himself  has  left  us  an  account  of 
his  sympathetic  labours  in  Bethlehem  Hospital  in  some 
observations  supplied  in  1703  to  the  Rev.  John  Strype,  who 
wrote  the  continuation  of  Stow's  "Survey  of  London."  In 
a  description  of  his  treatment,  Dr.  Tyson  remarks  that  many 
of  his  patients,  when  admitted,  were  suffering  from  some 
physical  disorder.  Some,  for  example,  had  partially  lost 
the  use  of  limbs,  or  their  toes  had  mortified.  Others  there 
were  who  had  dropsical  swellings,  or  the  skin  was  disfigured 
by  some  loathsome  disease.  Edward  Tyson  realized  that 
the  cure  of  the  physical  ailment  might  have  to  precede 
the  use  of  the  lancet  and  purge.  The  patient  was,  therefore, 
as  a  preliminary,  fed  up  in  such  cases  on  flesh-forming  foods, 
given  a  hot  or  cold  bath  ;  and  medicines,  proper  to  the 
physical  disease,  were  administered  under  the  super- 
intendence of  a  nurse — the  first  installed  in  the  hospital. 

Keepers  and  maids  had  often  been  forbidden  to  subject 
their  helpless  victims  to  rough  usage  or  abusive  language, 


A    DEVOTED   PHYSICIAN  225 

but  Dr.  Tyson  seems  to  have  achieved  a  more  positive 
advantage  for  them — "  all  the  care  and  tenderness  imagin- 
able." No  wonder  that  the  grateful  objects  of  his  sympathy 
preferred  the  hospital  to  a  sullen  or  frightened  home,  or  that 
there  was  always  a  long  list  of  cases  waiting  to  be  admitted. 

Dr.  Tyson  estimated  that  he  had  cured  (perhaps  we  should 
add  the  words  "  or  relieved  ")  two-thirds  of  the  patients  who 
had  passed  through  his  hands  in  the  course  of  twenty  years. 
This  is  rather  a  high  percentage,  but  he  had  a  rival  who  was 
even  more  successful,  or  perhaps  less  veracious.  It  is,  alas ! 
too  late  to  be  of  any  service,  but  I  am  quite  willing  to  give 
the  quack  the  advertisement  which  he  gave  the  "  Post  Boy" 
of  6th  January,   1699  : — 

"  In  Clerkenwell  Close,  where  figures  of  the  sick  are  over 
the  gate,  liveth  one  who  by  the  blesssing  of  God  cures  all 
distracted  people.  He  seldom  exceeds  three  months  in  the 
cure  of  any  person,  several  have  been  cured  in  a  fortnight, 
and  some  in  less  time  ;  he  has  cured  several  from  Bedlam, 
and  other  houses  in  and  about  this  city." 

Prevention  is  better  than  cure  in  mental  maladies,  and  Dr. 
Tyson  deserves  to  be  canonized  among  the  wisest  and  most 
devoted  of  Good  Samaritans,  if  only  because  he  set  himself 
to  prevent  relapse  by  a  system  of  after-care,  thus  anticipating 
the  ideals  of  to-day. 

In  the  case  of  poor  or  friendless  convalescents  he  found 
means  to  fit  them  out  with  clothes  and  to  provide  for  their 
immediate  necessities.  Further,  with  the  hearty  concurrence 
of  the  governors,  he  organized  an  out-patients'  department, 
where  former  patients  might  continue  to  receive  treatment. 

In  his  will  he  left  money  in  aid  of  the  charities  he  had 
established,  and  out  of  one  of  them  grew  the  Wardrobe  Fund, 
which  could  open   the  stoutest  safe. 

And  now  that  I  have  constructed  a  niche  for  Dr.  Tyson 
out  of  his  reforms,  his  charities,  and  his  devotion,  let  me  with 
my  mallet  and  chisel  fashion  such  a  statue  of  him  as  shall 
preserve  the  thoughtful  and  earnest  lineaments  of  his  portrait 
in  the  College  of  Physicians. 

He  was  one  of  the  first  anatomists  of  his  day,  and  he 

16 


226     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

published  elaborate  monographs  on  such  animals  as  the  por- 
poise and  chimpanzee,  which  sea-captains  used  to  bring  to 
his  house  for  dissection.  He  was  also  a  scholar  of  profound 
and  out-of-the-way  erudition,  and  there  was  nothing  he 
enjoyed  so  much  (and  what  enjoyment  it  is  to  look  for  new 
worlds  among  old  books!)  as  hunting  among  the  penny  boxes 
of  second-hand  booksellers  for  the  tattered  folios  of  abandoned 
or  forgotten  authors.  It  vastly  amused  his  colleagues  to  sug- 
gest that  he  bought  by  the  yard  the  old  books,  amongst 
which  he  was  well-nigh  buried,  merely  to  impress  the  awe- 
struck crowd  in  his  consulting-room. 

Some  of  his  voluble  patients  at  Bethlem  found  his  taci- 
turnity rather  embarrassing,  and  Samuel  Garth,  in  the 
"  Dispensary,"  playfully  satirizes  the  hesitating,  deliberat- 
ing speech  of  "  Carus."  Your  blood  (he  jests)  is  just  a  cold 
stagnant  puddle,  from  which  rise — clouding  your  sable  brows 
— dank  and  heavy  fogs  ! 

Elkanah  Settle,  the  laureate  of  the  city,  to  whom  I 
turn  for  some  last  loving  touches,  had  a  pen  ready  to 
serve  Whig  or  Tory,  and  he  kept  quite  a  ready-made  de- 
partment for  marriage  odes  or  funeral  panegyrics.  But  his 
"  Threnody  on  the  death  of  Dr.  Edward  Tyson "  is  not 
without  beauty  of  thought  and  genuine  feeling.  And  I 
am  sure  that  the  following  lines  from  the  poem  faithfully 
reflect  the  indignation  with  which  Elkanah's  patron  viewed 
any  attempt  to  rank  Bethlehem  Hospital  as  inferior  in  use- 
fulness and  dignity  to  the  hospitals  of  St.  Bartholomew  and 
St.  Thomas. 


'     "O  Bethlem,  Bethlem,  with  a  grinning  smile 
Let  sneering  fools  thy  glorious  rise  revile, 
As  if  Augusta  too  profuse  they  saw 
To  raise  such  costly  walls  for  beds  of  straw, 
The  lazar  lodg'd  ev'n  in  the  Dives'  roof. 
'Tis  Charity  that  builds,  and  that's  enough  ! 
Then  let  thy  walls  magnificently  shine, 
When  founded  in  a  service  so  divine." 


Edward  Tyson  died  on  ist  August,  1708,  aged  58  years. 


A    DEVOTED  PHYSICIAN  227 

Settle  makes  a  very  pretty  allusion  to  his  sudden  and 
painless  end.  Death  so  loved  him  (he  softly  sings)  that 
he  plucked  every  thorn  from  the  roses  on  which  he  pillowed 
the  physician's  head  for  his  last  long  sleep. 

The  court  books  of  1680  record  some  of  the  arrangements 
made  and  items  of  the  expense  incurred  at  the  funeral  of  a 
benefactor  (Nicholas  Mead). 

Doubtless,  therefore,  on  the  night  of  Dr.  Tyson's  funeral 
many  a  governor  and  officer  of  Bridewell  and  Bethlem  wore 
a  sprig  of  rosemary  for  remembrance,  and  drank  of  spiced 
wine  over  the  coffin  to  the  memory  of  the  dead. 

You  and  I  are  also  mourners :  let  us  put  on  our  long 
black  cloaks,  light  our  torches,  and  take  our  places  in  the 
procession  to  the  church  of  St.  Dionis,  Lime  Street. 

In  the  van  march  the  apprentices  of  Bridewell  and 
scholars  from  Christ's  Hospital,  and  behind  the  chief 
mourner  (Dr.  Richard  Tyson,  nephew  and  heir)  walk 
governors,  physicians,  merchants,  and  former  patients.  The 
velvet  pall  is  held  by  governors  from  the  royal  hospitals, 
who  carry  their  coloured  staves  of  office.  They  are  flanked 
on  either  side  by  beadles  with  the  escutcheons  of  Bride- 
well, Bethlem,  the  College  of  Physicians,  and  other  insti- 
tutions. 

Through  crowded  streets  the  mourners  file  into  a  church 
hung  with  black,  and  dimly  lit  with  waxen  candles  in 
silver  sconces.  Here  after  a  funeral  panegyric  the  inter- 
ment takes  place,  each  man  quenching  his  flaring  torch 
at  the  open  grave,  ere  he  passes  out  of  the  church  into 
the  night. 

High  up  on  the  northern  wall  of  All  Hallows',  Lombard 
Street,  to  which  it  was  removed  on  the  demolition  of  St. 
Dionis,  you  may  still  dimly  descry  the  beautiful  monument 
erected  to  Edward  Tyson.  Here  amidst  the  dust  and 
shadows  two  sturdy  Cupids  guard  the  bust  of  our  physician 
and  benefactor,  while  chubby  cherubs  flutter  below  amidst 
foliage,  fruit,  and  flowers. 

In  the  last  plate  of  the  "Rake's  Progress"  Hogarth 
has  scratched    the   letters    LE   on    the  walls   of  a  ward    in 


THE  MONUMENT  TO  DR.    TYSON,    ON    WHICH    APPEARS  THE   LINE — 

He  was  to  the  last  hour  of  his  life  the  devoted  physician  of  Bethlehem  Hospital, 

(Drawn  by  Mr.  Jarnes  Arrow.) 


A   DEVOTED  PHYSICIAN  229 

Bethlehem  Hospital  This  is  an  allusion  to  Nathaniel  Lee, 
the  dramatist,  who  was  under  Dr.  Tyson's  care  from  nth 
November,  1684,  to  23rd  April,  1688. 

Handsome  and  clever,  he  descended  upon  London  in  the 
train  of  a  patron,  expecting  to  find  on  the  stage  greater 
opportunities  than  Cambridge  offered.  With  the  voice  and 
emphasis  of  a  natural  elocutionist,  he  was  nevertheless  a 
failure  as  an  actor.  However,  he  took  the  town  by  storm 
with  turgid  plays  of  a  classical  type,  in  which  the  fire  of 
genius  was  often  obscured  by  the  smoke.  Dryden  and 
Purcell  consented  to  add  to  his  triumphs  by  collaborating 
with  him,  and  one  of  his  plays  (the  "  Rival  Queens  ")  long 
held  its  own  on  the  boards  as  a  stock  piece.  We  still 
misquote  a  line  of  his  which  originally  ran  : — 

"  When  Greek  join'd  Greek,  then  was  the  tug  of  war," 

Unfortunately  he  imitated  the  vices  of  his  friends  and 
patrons  without  the  discretion  of  the  prudent  profligate. 
Indeed,  at  the  house  of  Pembroke,  his  patron,  he  drank 
so  hard  that  the  butler  was  afraid  that  even  the  cellars 
of  Wilton  would  soon  be  drained  quite  dry. 

Ned  Ward  introduces  some  reminiscences  of  Lee's  thirst 
and  rubicund  countenance  into  some  sketches  of  the  hospital 
and  its  whimsical  characters  which  he  published  a  few  years 
afterwards  : — 

"  No  wonder  claret  is  so  scarce  when  he  carries  so  much 
in  his  nose,  but  if  a  spoonful  of  Lees  would  save  him  from 
choking,  he  should  not  have  a  drop." 

Many  stories  were  told  in  the  taverns  of  the  sayings  and 
doings  of  Lee  during  the  years  of  his  seclusion.  He  was 
composing,  it  was  said,  an  extravagant  play  in  his  cell, 
when  a  cloud  happened  to  pass  over  the  moon,  his  only 
candle.  "  Jupiter,  snuff  the  moon,"  he  pettishly  ejaculated, 
with  a  flash  of  his  old  humour.  And  Dryden  relates  how 
some  sane  idiot  of  a  visitor  observed  to  Lee  that  it  must 
be  very  easy  for  him  now  to  write  like  a  madman.  "  No, 
sir,"  thundered   the  playwright,  much   nettled,  "  it  is  not  so 


230     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

easy  to  write  like  a  madman  :  but  it  is  very  easy  indeed  to 
write  like  a  fool." 

Journalists  and  novelists,  please  digest  the  moral  of  this 
anecdote ! 

As  though  he  had  a  dim  presentiment  of  his  fate, 
Lee  drew  many  of  his  similes  from  scenes  which  he  had 
witnessed  as  one  of  a  holiday  crowd  in  Bethlem.  A 
quotation  from  his  "  Caesar  Borgia "  may  be  cited  in  illus- 
tration. 

"  To  my  charm'd  ears  no  more  of  women  tell ! 
Name  not  a  woman,  and  I  shall  be  well. 
Like  some  poor  lunatic  that  makes  his  moan, 
And  for  a  while  beguiles  his  lookers  on. 
He  reasons  well  :  his  eyes  their  wildness  lose  : 
He  vows  the  keepers  his  wrong'd  sense  abuse 
But,  if  you  touch  the  cause  that  hurt  his  brain. 
Then  his  teeth  gnash,  he  jfoams,  he  shakes  his  chain. 
His  eyeballs  roll^  and  he  is  mad  again." 

The  author  of  a  "  Satire  on  the  Poets,"  which  was  re- 
printed in  1747,  had  the  last  lines  in  his  mind  when  he 
penned  a  dark  picture  of  Lee,  as  doubtless  he  had  seen 
him,  in  the  acutest  stage  of  his  malady. 

"  There  in  a  den  removed  from  human  eyes, 
Possest  with  muse,  the  brain-sick  poet  lies. 

.  Too  miserably  wretched  to  be  nam'd. 
For  plays,  for  heroes,  and  for  passions  fam'd. 
Thoughtless  he  raves  his  sleepless  hours  away. 
In  chains  all  night,  in  darkness  all  the  day. 
And,  if  he  gets  some  intervals  from  pain. 
The  fit  returns,  he  foams,  and  bites  his  chain  ; 
His  eyeballs  roll,  and  he  grows  mad  again." 

The  truest  charity  in  his  case,  as  later  in  that  of  Christopher 
Smart,  would  have  been  to  turn  the  key  upon  him  for  his  life 
and  his  good.  He  was,  however,  released,  and  died  in  a  fit  of 
drunkenness — his  years  not  numbering  forty — in  1692. 

It  appears  from  the  steward's  accounts  that  after  his  first 


The  original  of  this  portrait  of  Lee  appears  to  be  the  painting,  erroneously  ascribed 

to  Dobson,  in  the  Garrick  Club.     But  in  the  engraving  reproduced  the  setting  of  the 

bust  is  slightlv  altered,  and  it  is  stated  that  it  was  engraved  in  1778  by  John  Watts 

from  the  original  picture  by  Richard  Cosway. 


To  face  p.  230. 


A    DEVOTED  PHYSICIAN  231 

year  of  detention  the  Board  of  Green  Cloth  paid  for  his 
maintenance.  This  was  the  Board  which  sent  to  the  hospital 
people  who  obtruded  themselves  on  fantastical  errands  into 
royal  palaces  or  were  objects  of  the  king's  solicitude.  Lee 
wrote  almost  exclusively  for  the  "  King's  Company "  of 
players,  and  may,  therefore,  have  been  regarded  as  one  of  the 
royal  household. 

Four  years  before  the  death  of  Dr.  Tyson,  Thomas  Guy 
made  a  donation  of  ;^200  to  Bethlem. 

The  founder  of  Guy's  Hospital  was  a  bookseller  who 
amassed  an  immense  fortune  by  speculating  in  South  Sea 
Stock.  He  had  the  reputation  of  being  parsimonious,  not  to 
say  miserly,  and  I  am  inclined  to  think  that  a  story  told  fifty 


"jl 


t  t.  /       u-  J 

"FROM  THIS  TYME  THE  GREENE  CLOTH  PAYED  FOR  HIM." 

years  later  to  a  French  tourist  may  have  been  originally  told 
of  Guy. 

"  A  collection  was  being  made"  (writes  P.  J.  Grosley)  "for 
some  building  in  progress  at  Bethlem,  and  the  collectors  were 
about  to  knock  at  the  door  of  a  house,  when  they  heard 
within  an  old  gentleman  vehemently  scolding  his  servant  for 
wasting  a  match.  This  did  not  seem  a  very  favourable 
moment  for  introducing  themselves  and  their  errand.  How- 
ever, to  their  surprise  he  responded  to  the  halting  accents  of 
their  appeal  with  a  large  bag  of  guineas,  adding,  '  I  keep  my 
house  in  my  own  way  that  I  may  spend  my  money  in  my 
own  way.'  " 

In  his  will  Guy  made  provision  for  the  keeping  of  curable 
and  incurable  cases  of  insanity  in  his  hospital,  but  in  1859 
the  house,  which  had  served  the  purpose  of  its  founder  since 


/ 


232     THE    STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

1744.,  was  converted  into  the  "  John  "  and  "  Miriam  "  Wards 
of  Guy's  Hospital. 

Another  man  of  letters  with  whom  Dr.  Tyson  came  in 
contact,  though  under  other  circumstances,  was  Daniel  Defoe. 
Defoe,  whether  he  was  in  or  out  of  prison,  whether  he  was 
making  tiles  or  importing  cloth,  was  always  throwing  off  a 
pamphlet  or  a  paper  for  some  political  paymaster.  In  1706 
he  was  running  a  journal  of  the  Spectator  type  known  as 
A  Review.  One  of  its  aims  was  to  invite  correspondence 
from  outsiders,  by  preference  something  that  would  become 
the  talk  of  the  town. 

It  appears — to  tell  the  story  after  having  read  the  last 
chapter — that  for  the  first  six  years  of  the  century  a  young 
lady  in  London  had  given  her  friends  such  anxiety  that  they 
had  laid  her  case  [before  Dr.  Tyson.  She  was  under  the 
delusion  that  the  food  given  her  by  her  mother  and  brothers 
was  poisoned,  and  she  also  suffered  from  hallucinations  of 
sight  or  hearing.  She  left  home,  but  her  extravagances  and 
her  neglect  of  herself  drove  her  out  of  one  house  after  another. 
The  physician  of  Bethlem  advised  that,  as  she  was  a  young 
lady  of  wealth,  application  should  be  made  for  a  commission 
of  inquiry.  The  commission  found  that  the  lady  was  insane, 
and  Dr.  Tyson,  with  the  help  of  the  Bethlem  porter,  placed 
her  as  a  patient  in  the  private  house  of  a  medical  man.  The 
removal  of  the  lady  was  the  signal  for  a  great  outburst  of 
indignation  on  the  part  of  some  of  her  friends,  who  insisted 
that  she  had  been  kidnapped  and  subjected  to  all  the  horrors 
of  a  private  madhouse,  although  perfectly  sane,  for  the  sake 
of  her  money.  Defoe  inserted  statements  of  the  case  from 
both  sides,  without  taking  the  part  of  the  patient  and  her 
friends,  but  he  allowed  himself  to  suggest  that  all  private 
asylums  should  be  registered,  as  a  preliminary  reform. 

Some  twenty  years  later  Defoe  returned  to  the  subject  of 
private  madhouses  in  his  "  Augusta  Triumphans,  or  the  way  to 
make  London  the  most  flourishing  city  in  the  Universe"  (1728). 
According  to  him,  private  asylums  had  greatly  multiplied 
during  the  reign  of  George  II,  and  were  not  subject  to  any 
visitation   or    inspection.       He    proposed,    therefore,    that    it 


A    DEVOTED  PHYSICIAN  233 

should  be  made  illegal  to  consign  anybody  to  imprisonment 
in  a  private  madhouse  without  some  official  inquiry  and 
authority.  In  this  the  "True  Born  Englishman"  (as  he  "■ 
loved  to  sign  himself)  was  without  doubt  advocating  a  very- 
necessary  reform  in  the  cause  of  common  sense  and  humanity. 
The  only  matter  for  regret  is  that,  in  spite  of  parliamentary 
investigations  in  1765,  in  181 5,  and  in  18 16,  it  was  left  to  the 
nineteenth  century  in  its  middle  age  to  subject  private  asylums 
to  stringent  rules. 

No  doubt  there  was  a  basis  of  fact  under  the  sensational 
charges  of  the  "  Ramblers  "  and  "  Spys  "  of  the  eighteenth 
century  as  well  as  in  the  "  Valentine  Vox  "  of  iienry  Cockton 
(1840)  and  the  "  Hard  Cash  "  of  Charles  Reade  (1878).  We 
need  not,  however,  take  too  seriously  the  author  of  "  Robinson 
Crusoe,"  when  he  illustrates  his  appeal  to  the  queen  of 
George  II  and  the  ladies  of  her  court  with  sensational  stories 
about  wives  immured  in  madhouses  by  unfaithful  husbands.  ^^ 
The  foundation  of  such  stories — whether  in  Defoe  or  others — • 
is  the  statements  made  by  patients.  But  neither  journalist 
nor  novelist  is  in  a  position  to  appraise  such  statements  with-  ' 
out  some  of  the  experiences  of  an  alienist,  or  of  the  harassed 
relations  of  a  patient. 


CHAPTER   XXVI 

VISITING     DAYS 

On  the  death  of  Dr.  Edward  Tyson,  the  governors  elected 
Richard  Hale  as  their  physician.  He  had  been  driven  out  of 
Oxford  in  his  earlier  days  b}^  a  practice  which  dwindled  along 
with  his  reputation,  but  he  recovered  his  ground  in  London, 
and,  had  he  cared,  might  have  died  a  baronet  and  a  court 
physician.  His  Harveian  oration  on  the  mediaeval  physicians 
is  a  very  scholarly  performance,  and  it  interested  me  to  find 
that  he  included  amongst  them  John  Arundell,  unaware, 
however,  that  he  might  be  styled  one  of  his  predecessors  at 
Bethlem  in  1457.  It  was  said  of  Hale  after  his  death  that, 
although  his  face  "wore  the  look  of  sternness  characteristic  of 
a  mental  specialist,"  he  was  nevertheless  in  reality  the  kindest 
of  men.  There  is  a  portrait  of  him  in  the  College  of  Physicians 
which  assuredly  fails  to  do  justice  to  his  sterner  moods. 
Indeed,  the  artist  has  rather  succeeded  in  introducing  us  to 
the  most  jovial  of  hosts,  at  whose  table  many  a  dragon-china 
punch-bowl  would  have  been  drained  to  the  victories  of 
Marlborough  or  the  discomfiture  of  the  Jacobites. 

It  is  not,  therefore,  surprising  to  find  that  Dr.  Hale  con- 
sidered "company  very  beneficial  to  the  patients"  of  Bethlem, 
especially  to  such  as  were  suffering  from  mental  depression  ; 
indeed,  he  insisted  (so  we  are  informed)  that  "  jollity  and 
merriment,  and  even  a  band  of  music,"  would  contribute  to 
recovery.  In  support  of  these  views  it  was  also  urged  by  the 
staff  of  the  hospital  that,  if  ever  a  resident  did  any  mischief 
to   himself,  it  was  always  on  a  Sunday,  when  visitors  were 

excluded. 

234 


VISITING  DAYS  235 

There  are,  of  course,  ingredients  of  truth  and  value  in  the 
sparkling  prescription  of  Dr.  Hale.  Music  is  one  of  our 
medicines  in  Bethlem  to-day,  as  it  was  elsewhere  in  the  days 
of  Saul,  or  in  the  practice  of  the  pagan  physicians.  A  band 
of  music  is  no  longer  merely  a  suggestion  not  meant  to  be 
taken  too  seriously :  our  excellent  band  is  one  of  our  most 
popular  institutions.  And  some  measure  at  least  of  "jollity 
and  merriment"  does  somehow  contrive  to  insinuate  itself 
into  frozen  heart  or  listless  mind,  when  a  dance  is  given, 
or  comedy  played,  in  the  recreation  hall  of  the  present 
hospital. 

Moreover,  the  company  even  of  casual  visitors  is  a  tonic  or 
a  champagne,  which  may  on  occasions  and  under  conditions 
be  administered  with  the  happiest  of  results.  But  the  visitors 
and  the  visiting  days  of  our  earlier  history  must  have 
aggravated  disease  or  retarded  recovery,  inasmuch  as  they 
encouraged  publicity  and  excitement  to  invade  the  sick- 
room, better  left  to  seclusion  and  tranquillity,  the  best  of 
nurses. 

The  governors,  however,  continued  to  encourage  or  tolerate 
the  indiscriminate  admission  of  visitors  till  towards  the  close 
of  the  eighteenth  century,  for  a  public  exhibition  of  its  bene- 
ficiaries advertised  the  charity,  and  added  hundreds  of  pounds 
annually  to  its  revenues. 

In  an  earlier  chapter  I  have  sketched  a  visiting  day  in  the 
reign  of  James  I — perhaps  it  was  the  day  when  the  young 
people  of  the  house  of  Percy  "  paid  ten  shillings  to  see  the 
show  at  Bedlam."  Let  me  now  present  to  the  reader  a 
corresponding  panel — a  scene  in  the  time  of  Hogarth. 

The  beau  has  had  a  morning  bout  with  his  French  master- 
of-arms,  and  he  has  listened — guinea  in  hand  and  boredom 
in  his  eyes — to  the  sugary  dedication  read  to  him  by  the 
author  who  composed  it  while  his  only  shirt  was  being 
washed.  And  now  there  is  the  afternoon  to  be  dawdled 
away  somehow  or  other,  Carestini,  the  Italian  tenor,  is 
singing  at  red-haired  Mrs.  Lane's,  and  there  is  cock-fighting 
in  Birdcage  Walk,  but  the  valet  opines  that  Bedlam  on  a 
public  holiday  will   be  just  the  thing  to  tickle  his  master's 


236     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

jaded  palate.  Accordingly  the  beau  allows  himself  to  be 
arrayed  in  sky-blue  coat  and  long  embroidered  vest,  and  his 
Irish  chairmen  trot  off  with  him,  making  for  Moor  Gate 
through  a  mob  of  the  blue-coated  apprentices  of  Bridewell, 
who  are  off  with  the  engines  to  a  fire  in  Grub  Street. 

Inside  the  hospital  he  finds  on  his  arrival  all  the  jollity 
and  merriment  of  an  old-fashioned  fair.  Nuts,  fruit,  and 
cheesecakes  are  being  peddled  up  and  down  the  galleries  ; 
beer  comes  in  with  the  connivance  of  the  keepers,  and  toasts 
are  being  drunk  by  visitors,  patients,  and  keepers — v/ith 
a  curse  upon  Spain  or  a  blessing  upon  "  Wilkes  and 
liberty." 

And  there  were  the  side  shows  of  a  Bartholomew  or 
Southwark  Fair,  with  the  keeper  as  showman.  Let  me  treat 
you  to  a  specimen  of  his  patter,  which  our  macaroni  heard 
with  a  disdainful  smile  at  its  vulgarity. 

"  Here,  y'r  worships,  are  the  two  cells  (numbers  54  and  55) 
which  Mr.  Hogarth  painted.  Number  55  thinks  as  how  he's 
the  Great  Mogul  hisself.  Sure,  we  put  a  crown  of  twisted 
straw  on  his  head  an'  a  bit  of  broken  broomstick  in  his  hand 
for  a  sceptre  :  just  by  way  of  a  frolic,  d'ye  see  ?  Ho !  ho ! 
Mr.  Hogarth  said  as  how  he  never  had  a  better  sitter  in  his 
life,  for  of  course  No.  55  was  the  Emperor  of  the  Indies,  and 
he  wasn't  going  to  move  while  he  was  being  painted  as  sich. 
Number  54,  next  door,  don't  speak  a  word,  never,  faith,  all 
the  year  through.  The  light  happened  to  be  streaming 
through  the  bars  (it  was  about  twelve  o'clock),  and  it  fell 
upon  a  wooden  cross  which  we  had  set  up  on  the  bed  against 
the  wall.  And  Mr.  Hogarth,  he  said  as  he  painted  :  '  There's 
hope,  Tom,  for  the  worst  of  us  hereafter  through  the  cross.' 
But  the  pore  ould  gentleman  looked  at  the  cross  for  a 
moment,  then  turned  away  all  of  a  tremble,  and  wrung  his 
hands,  just  as  he's  a-doing  now.  And  now,  y'r  honours, 
before  you  go,  won't  ye  buy  some  verses — written  by  one  of 
our  own  gentlemen — Mr.  Clark  yonder — only  threepence 
with  a  picture  ;  and  please  to  remember  the  pains  of  the 
sarvants,  who  work  very  hard  for  little  money,  and  often  get 
hurt.     Thank  you,  y'r  honour,  and  you,  my  lady." 


VISITING  DAYS 


237 


The  keeper  has,  I  think,  missed  the  significance  of  three 
medallions  painted  by  Hogarth  in  the  cell  of  No.   54. 

The  artist,  who  was  saturated  with  the  religious  preju- 
dices of  his  period,  thought  just  as  badly  of  the  Papists  as 


%^"nT'i"'^^'f"''">?'r'*^y*''*?^  ""-^^  ^  ^rpr'°T**^''*;^>T^'"'''nr"''^"°"'*}T*''?*"r'' 


I  I 


VERSES  SOLD  TO  VISITORS. 

These  verses  bear  the  date  of  1744,  but  the  illustration  represents 

the    hospital    as    it  was    before    1733.      They  are    dedicated    to 

Admiral  Vernon,  elected  a  governor  after  his  capture  of   Porto 

Bello,  Central  America,  from  the  Spanish  in  1739. 


of  the  Methodists.  He  has,  therefore,  portrayed  a  Roman 
Catholic  as  a  natural  victim  of  religious  melancholia,  painting 
medallions  of  three  Fathers  of  the  Church  (SS.  Athanasius, 
Clement,  and  Laurence)  on  the  walls  of  the  cell.  Trusler 
was  the  official  interpreter  of  Hogarth,  and  he  also  explains 


/ 


/ 


238     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

the  condition  of  the  man  as  due  to  the  terrors  and  austerities 
of  his  religion. 

Visitors  went  to  Bethlem  at  Easter,  Whitsun,  or  Christ- 
mas, very  much  as  the  uncouth  rustic  goes  to  the  menagerie 
of  a  travelHng  circus,  to  poke  up  the  animals  with  an  ash 
plant.  "I  saw,"  says  a  writer  in  the  World  of  1753,  "a 
hundred  spectators  making  sport  of  the  miserable  inhabi- 
tants, provoking  them  into  furies  of  rage."  The  fair  then 
turned  into  a  pandemonium,  the  prisoners  clanking  their 
chains  and  drumming  on  their  doors  in  sympathy.  Or,  in 
exchange  for  a  glass  of  gin  through  the  peep-hole,  a  merrier 
lodger,  nothing  loth,  would  burst  into  his  favourite  ditty, 

"Wine  does  wonders  every  day," 

calling  upon  all  the  company  present  to  roar  out  the  lusty 
chorus, 

"Sing  tan  taranara,  my  brave  sport." 

With  quite  an  appetite  for  dinner  the  beau  retrieves  his 
sword  from  Wood,  the  porter,  and  goes  off  in  his  chair  to 
his  club  near  St.  James's  Palace. 

He  was  much  chaffed  through  a  night  of  cards  by  sly 
allusions  to  the  words  flung  after  him  as  he  left  the  women's 
ward. 

"Yonder  goes  a  prodigal  puppy  that  has  got  more  flour 
in  his  wig  than  my  poor  mother  has  in  her  meal-tub  for 
a  pudding." 

Unsavoury  scandals  were  inseparable  from  a  system  of 
indiscriminate  admittance,  and  the  reputation  of  the  hospital 
was  sadly  tarnished  by  the  degradation  of  its  wards.  In  one 
of  his  thumb-nail  sketches,  Ned  Ward  writes  thus  of  what  he 
had  himself  witnessed  in  the  reign  of  Anne. 

"  The  spectators  were  bad  of  all  ranks,  qualities,  colours, 
and  sizes.  There  was  a  Jack  to  every  Jill :  people  came  in 
singly  and  went  out  in  pairs.  And  all  I  can  say  of  Bedlam 
is  that  it  is  a  hospital  for  the  sick,  a  promenade  of  rogues, 
and  a  dry  walk  for  loiterers." 


JACK    SHEPPARD    VISITS    HIS    MOTHFK    IX    OLD    BEDLAM. 

(The  original  of  this  illustration   was   drawn    by  George  Crnikshank  for  W.  H.  AinswortJfs  novel, 

'•Jack  Sheppard,"  1839.) 


To  face  p.  239. 


VISITING   DAYS 


239 


The  patients  were  actually  robbed  on  such  days  of  food, 
clothing,  and  money,  by  professional  thieves.  And  the  beau 
might  very  well  have  been  present  at  the  arrest  of  Jack 
Sheppard  or  one  of  his  pals  in  such  a  haunt  of  the  lewd  and 
disorderly. 

Protests  were  made  in  vain  for  nearly  a  century  against 


\YISIT-ioBEBTA>'J 


The  patient  in  the  cell  on  the  left  has  been  advising  the 
husband  to  watch  his  wife  more  closely ;  the  husband  is  in 
a  state  of  collapse,  and  the  wife  storms.  This  caricature, 
designed  and  etched  bj'  Richard  Newton,  was  published 
in  1794,  apparently  as  an  advertisement  of  an  exhibition 
of  caricatures. 


such  an  exhibition  as  I  have  described,  in  the  pulpit,  by 
neighbours,  and  in  literature.  Direct  representations  were 
made  to  the  governors  in  1699  and  1742.  The  preacher  of 
the  Spital  sermon  in  17 19  spoke  as  frankly  as  a  man  could 
who  was  invited  to  dine  with  the  court  after  his  discourse. 
In  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  the  World  and  the 
Gentleman  s  Magazine  voiced  the  disgust  of  a  more  thought- 


240     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

ful  and  refined  age,  and  without  doubt  the  foundation  of 
St.  Luke's  Hospital  in  175 1  was  partly  prompted  by  the 
abuses  at  Bethlem.  For  the  tenth  "consideration,"  addressed 
by  the  founders  of  St.  Luke's  to  the  public,  ran  as  follows  : — 
"  That  the  patients  shall  not  be  exposed  to  public  view." 

It  was  not,  however,  till  1766  that  the  court  began  to 
abandon  point  by  point  the  positions  which  had  become 
untenable,  when  it  was  decided — as  in  the  puritan  period — 
to  slam  the  doors  in  the  faces  of  curiosity  and  wantonness. 
Three  years  later  no  man  except  a  governor  was  to  be 
allowed  access  to  the  women's  side,  a  male  visitor  being 
permitted  to  see  a  female  patient  only  in  the  committee 
room,  and  in  the  presence  of  a  nurse.  Finally  on  nth 
November,  1770 — probably  on  the  advice  of  Dr.  John  Monro 
— the  last  fortress  was  evacuated,  and  it  was  ordered  that 
admittance  should  for  the  future  be  by  ticket  only,  and  that 
accredited  visitors  should  be  accompanied  by  keepers  or 
nurses. 

The  domestic  affairs  of  the  hospital  were  administered 
after  1676  by  a  house  committee  and  a  grand  committee, 
which  sat  at  Bethlem.  If  I  may  compare  them  to  the  House 
of  Commons  and  its  committees,  then  the  court  of  all  the 
governors  of  Bridewell  and  Bethlem  formed  a  House  of 
Lords,  which  ratified  or  disagreed  with  the  recommendations 
or  decisions  of  the  Lower  House. 

The  Bethlem  committees  have  left  no  minutes  of  their 
proceedings,  and  the  records  of  Bridewell,  although  the 
current  will  still  bear  my  light  barque,  tend  at  points  to 
lose  themselves  in  the  sands  of  summaries  and  leases. 
Accordingly,  the  historian  who  would  be  interesting  has 
often  to  fall  back  upon  the  gossip  of  such  men  as  Thomas 
Brown  and  Edward  Ward. 

Tom  Brown  was  a  scholar  who  used  his  wit  and  learning 
against  the  sanctities  of  religion  (he  was,  however,  buried  in 
the  Abbey  cloisters)  and  the  decencies  of  life.  Ned  Ward 
(the  ''  London  Spy ")  kept  a  public-house  near  Bethlehem 
Hospital,  and  associated  with  the  wits  and  men  of  letters 
who  made  it  their  house  of  call.     He  had  the  gift  of  telling 


VISITING  DAYS  241 

a  story  with  all  the  realism  of  Defoe  and  the  coarse  humour 
of  Swift. 

Many  of  our  patients  sat  unconsciously  to  these  ruffians  for 
their  portraits,  and  I  am  indebted  largely  to  their  purses, 
although  I  have  had  to  wash  the  money  they  gave  me. 

Ned  Ward,  for  example,  had  a  chat  with  Thamar,  the 
gentle  musician  with  many  crotchets  in  his  head,  of  whom 
1  have  spoken  elsewhere.  Tom  Brown  also  gives  him  a 
playful  dig  in  the  ribs,  as  having  deserted  sonnet  and 
madrigal  for  a  philosophy  which  would  not  allow  him  to 
kill  vermin  or  to  eat  good  roast  mutton.  I  find  on  exam- 
ining the  registers  at  St.  Stephen's,  Coleman  Street,  that 
Thamar  died  in   1700. 

I  do  not  know  who  the  patient  was  who  denounced  the 
monarchy,  while  he  munched  his  bread  and  cheese,  at  the 
same  time  confessing  that  Bethlem  was  the  only  place  in 
London  where  a  man  could  speak  his  mind  about  king  or 
statesman  without  being  prosecuted,  for  it.  But  the  "Jacobite 
ranting  against  the  Revolution "  was  one  Richard  Stafford, 
who  gave  William  III  and  Mary  considerable  trouble. 

As  a  scholar  at  Oxford  he  would  naturally  be  an  ardent 
Jacobite,  but  his  natural  sympathies  were  further  inflamed 
by  mental  disease.  He  was,  accordingly,  committed  to 
Bethlem  on  4th  November,  1691,  and  for  seven  weeks  the 
"scribe  of  Jesus  Christ  and  the  servant  of  the  most  High" 
was  shut  up  in  a  dark  room,  "stinking,"  and  far  from  celestial. 
When  he  was  allowed  the  liberty  of  walking  up  and  down  in 
the  gallery,  his  Jacobite  friends  visited  him,  bringing  him  all 
the  means  of  writing  seditious  libels  against  the  king  who 
had  usurped  the  throne  of  James  H.  These  violent  and 
incoherent  tirades  were  carried  out  of  doors  to  the  printer, 
and  scattered  broadcast  over  the  town  to  the  annoyance 
of  the  government.  Orders  were,  therefore,  sent  down  from 
the  council  to  Bethlem  that  he  was  to  be  "  more  closely 
confined,  and  no  suspected  person  was  to  be  permitted  to 
communicate  with  him." 

Stafford  got  very  sick  of  being  shut  up,  and  presumably 
began  to  recover,  for  at  last  he  gave  his  word  that  he  would 

17 


242     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

"testify"  no  more  against  king  or  parliament.  He  went  back 
in  1692  to  his  native  Gloucestershire,  and  devoted  the  last 
twelve  years  of  his  life  to  the  duller  but  safer  occupation  of 
writing  sermons. 

But  I  have  a  whole  budget  of  literary  associations  to  gossip 
over  as  we  saunter  through  the  wards.  Will  you  allow  me  to 
open  the  pack,  and  spread  out  some  of  my  attractive  wares  ? 

Henry  Carey,  the  poet,  began,  I  take  it,  to  hammer  out 
the  opening  lines  of  "  Sally  in  our  Alley "  (the  song  that 
Addison  loved),  as  he  followed  Sally  and  her  young  man, 
a  shoemaker's  apprentice,  up  and  down  the  promenades  of 
the  hospital  menagerie.  Not  that  the  rustic  lover — in  his 
grave  simplicity — thought  even  a  holiday  in  Bedlam  enough 
for  such  a  paragon  of  homely  virtues.  For  he  swept  her  on 
— in  his  masterful  way — to  the  "  puppet  shows  and  flying 
chairs  of  Moorfields";  and  the  happiest  of  days  was  crowned 
with  bacon,  stuffed  beef,  cheesecakes,  and  bottled  ale  at  the 
"  Farthing  Pie  House." 

Yet  just  one  more  story  of  a  visiting  day  in  a  house,  which 
is  the  scene  of  many  unexpected  encounters.  Have  I  not 
run  up  against  old  schoolmasters,  old  schoolfellows,  and  old 
friends,  now  and  again,  in  the  course  of  my  long  chaplaincy  ? 
Well,  Samuel  Richardson,  novelist  and  publisher,  tells  us 
how  a  lady  of  his  acquaintance  suddenly  found  herself  face 
to  face  with  a  well-known  man  of  letters — of  all  places  in 
the  world — in  Bedlam.  This  episode  occurs  in  No.  153  of 
his  "Letters  written  to  and  for  particular  friends"  (1741),  and 
no  doubt  the  anecdote  refers  to  a  personality  of  the  period. 

"  I  had  the  shock  of  seeing  the  late  polite  and  ingenious 

Mr.  in  these  woeful  chambers.     We  had  heard,  you 

know,  of  his  being  somewhat  disordered,  but  I  did  not  expect 
to  find  him  here.  No  sooner  did  I  put  my  face  to  the  grate, 
but  he  leaped  from  the  bed  and  called  me  with  frightful 
fervency  to  come  into  his  room.  The  surprise  affected  me 
pretty  much ;  and,  my  confusion  being  observed  by  a  crowd 
of  strangers,  I  heard  it  presently  whispered  that  I  was  his 
sweetheart  and  the  cause  of  his  troubles.  This  accident  drew 
so  many  eyes  upon  me,  as  obliged  me  soon  to  quit  the  place." 


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CHAPTER  XXVII 

HOGARTH 

Perhaps  the  spiteful  fairy,  who  had  doomed  so  many  to 
Bethlem  from  their  birth,  had  not  the  heart  to  be  present,  when 
the  second  hospital  was  christened  near  Moor  Gate  in  1676, 

At  any  rate,  during  the  last  quarter  of  the  seventeenth 
century  and  the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  through 
which  we  are  sauntering  with  wig  and  sword,  good  fairies 
kept  trooping  up  to  the  money-boxes  at  the  Penny  Gates 
with  estates  in  London,  Kent,  and  Lincolnshire,  which  once 
had  belonged  to  John  Fowke,  John  Edmanson,  John 
Parsons,  and  others  whose  names  I  recite  in  the  chapel  on 
Founder's  Day. 

The  fairy  queen,  our  godmother,  had  but  to  smile,  and 
straightway  men  like  Edward  Barkham,  of  Lincoln,  began 
to  ask  themselves  what  they  could  personally  do  to  alleviate 
the  condition  of  the  incurably  insane,  so  dangerous  to  them- 
selves and  so  offensive  to  their  neighbours. 

There  are  to  this  day,  up  and  down  England,  houses,  or 
the  sites  of  houses,  haunted  by  the  name  of  "  Bedlam."  In 
these  houses  acute  and  dangerous  cases  were  once  chained 
down  to  the  floor,  often  in  cellars  and  outhouses,  just  as  they 
were  chained  in  America  until  the  'forties,  when  Dorothea 
Dix  set  forth  on  her  errand  of  mercy  and  reason.  There 
were  no  county  asylums  for  the  poor  in  the  eighteenth 
century,  and  it  was  to  remove  chronic  cases  from  such  sur- 
roundings that  Bethlehem  Hospital  appealed  to  the  charity 
of  England  for  means  to  build  suitable  accommodation  for 
such  outcasts. 

243 


244     'THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

It  was  laid  in  1729  upon  the  heart  and  conscience  of 
Edward  Barkham  to  leave  to  Bethlem  for  the  maintenance 
of  incurable  wards  nearly  all  that  he  had  in  lands  and  houses 
in  Lincolnshire. 

The  will  was  disputed  by  Barkham's  sister,  and,  as  in  the 
case  of  the  Fowke  legacy,  some  allowance  had  to  be  made 
from  the  estate  to  disappointed  relatives.  But  there  were 
years — even  in  the  nineteenth  century — when  the  farm 
lands  realized  in  the  gross  as  much  as  £6,000  per  annum  ; 
and  the  governors  have  gratefully  written  the  name  of  Bark- 
ham  in  letters  of  gold  on  a  leaf  of  marble  in  the  Great  Hall 
at  Bridewell,  where  so  many  worthy  presidents  serenely 
smile  from  Olympian  heights  upon  the  poor  mortals  left 
below. 

Many  benefactions,  however,  had  been  received  for  the 
establishment  of  an  incurable  foundation  before  the  legacy 
of  Barkham,  and  in  the  autumn  of  1725  the  governors  were 
in  a  position  to  build.  Accordingly  male  wards  were  run  out 
at  right  angles  from  the  line  of  the  main  building  at  the  east, 
or  Bishopsgate  end,  a  corresponding  wing  for  women  being 
constructed  on  the  west  after  October,  1733. 

Unfortunately  the  building  committee  spoilt  for  ever  the 
beauty  and  symmetry  of  a  palace  by  upsetting  the  architec- 
tural balance.  But  much  must  be  forgiven  to  these  sinners 
against  taste,  seeing  that  they  held  out  hands  of  help  to  those 
who  were  perishing  in  the  raging,  raving  waters. 

In  the  autumn  of  1732,  or  the  spring  of  1733,   Hogarth 

was  painting  the  eighth  scene  of  his  "  Rake's  Progress  "  in 

the  new  incurable  ward  of  Bedlam,  and  the  engravings  of  it 

were  being  executed  in  1734  or  1735.     Now  these  were  just 

the  years  in  which  the  governors  were  soliciting  subscriptions 

to  pay  off  the  debt  incurred  on  account  of  the  new  wing  for 

female  incurables.     I  venture,  therefore,  to  suggest  that  his 

"  Bedlam "    picture    represents    something    more    than    an 

inevitable   episode  in  the  progress  of  a  rake  from    bad  to 

worse :    it   looks   as    though    it  were    also    an    endorsement 

of  a  subscription-book  at  that  time  being  circulated  through 

the  city. 


HOGARTH  245 

In  support  of  my  suggestion,  let  me  ask  you  to  remember 
what  a  generous  friend  Hogarth  was  to  the  London  hospitals. 
In  1736  he  painted  the  "  Good  Samaritan  "  and  the  "  Pool  of 
Bethesda "  for  St.  Bartholomew's  Hospital ;  he  turned  the 
Foundling  Hospital  into  quite  a  lounge  for  wealthy  con- 
noisseurs ;  and  St.  George's  Hospital,  Hyde  Park,  still 
treasures  the  view  of  the  institution  painted  by  Hogarth  and 
others  in  1746. 

I  hold  in  my  hand — please  notice — a  copy  of  the  engrav- 
ing in  its  first  "  state"  published  25th  June,  1735,  just  a  day 
after  the  Copyright  Act,  promoted  by  Hogarth,  came  into 
force. 

The  original  painting  is  in  the  Soane  Museum,  Lincoln's 
Inn  Fields,  with  the  rest  of  the  series  known  as  "  A  Rake's 
Progress."  These  eight  pictures  formed  part  of  Alderman 
Beckford's  collection  at  Fonthill,  where  they  escaped  the  fire 
which  devoured  five  canvases  of  "  A  Harlot's  Progress." 
They  were  purchased  by  Sir  John  Soane  in  1802  for  ;^S52, 
or  triple  the  price  {^£\Z/\)  originally  received  by  the  artist  for 
the  set. 

In  every  painting  or  print  of  so  dramatic  an  artist  there 
is  a  whole  world  of  passion,  incident,  and  allusion.  But 
the  story  of  the  play  is  printed  in  such  small  type,  and  the 
allusions  are  so  obscure  to-day,  that  I  must  accompany  the 
reader  much  as  Dr.  James  Monro,  our  physician,  would 
have  accompanied  Hogarth  with  case-book  and  a  running 
commentary. 

In  the  first  place,  the  incurable  ward  with  its  cells  and 
staircase  is  painted  with  absolute  exactitude  :  even  the  iron 
grille  at  the  head  of  the  staircase  in  the  illustration  seems 
to  represent  a  rearrangement  only  made  in  1729  to  divide 
freeholders  from  leaseholders,  incurables  from  curables. 

Now  let  us  study  the  details  of  the  picture :  they  have  all 
some  value  and  significance. 

In  the  foreground  is  Thomas  Rakewell,  who  has  reached 
by  way  of  the  Fleet  Prison  the  last  stage  in  the  pilgrimage 
of  the  prodigal.  His  head  has  been  shaved  by  the  hospital 
barber,  and  one  of  the  keepers,  in  blue  livery,  is  manacling 


246     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

his  ankles.  Poor  Tom  has  lost  all  self-control :  he  has  lost 
his  identity  :  the  black  patch  of  plaister  on  his  side  shows  us 
that  he  is  a  danger  to  himself.  In  these,  his  last,  days  he 
is  forsaken  of  all  save  Sarah  Young,  the  woman  he  deserted 
in  her  trouble :  perhaps  it  is  Weston,  the  steward  (in  the 
original  picture  he  wears  a  pink  coat),  who  is  gently  unloosing 
the  clasp  of  a  woman's  devotion. 

Absorbed  in  himself,  and  insensible  to  the  tragedy  before 
his  very  eyes — this  is  the  sure  touch  of  trained  observation — ■ 
each  of  the  incurables  delineated  inhabits  a  solitary  world  of 
his  own  making.  The  barking  of  the  dog  does  not  disturb 
the  fixed,  stony  gaze  of  the  ruined  dupe  of  passion  :  the 
fatuous  "  pope "  with  mitre  and  crozier  drones  snatches  of 
the  mass  over  and  over  again,  the  musician  feels  no  indignity 
in  being  made  to  wear  an  open  music-book  instead  of  a 
cock'd  hat,  and  the  emaciated  astronomer  gazes  at  phantom 
stars  through  a  paper  telescope — for  all  the  tears  of  Sarah 
Young. 

Mewed  up  in  a  dark  corner  behind  the  door  is  the 
geographer,  whose  nautical  calculations — so  ruthlessly  does 
Fate  knock  science  off  the  highest  perch — measure  vast 
oceans  and  portion  out  a  world. 

Along  the  rail  of  the  staircase  you  may  pick  out  with  a  glass 
the  words  "Charming  Betty  Careless,"  which  have  been  carved 
by  her  victim.  Betty,  who  figures  in  Fielding's  "  Amelia," 
was,  in  spite  of  child-like,  innocent  looks,  a  Circe  who  turned 
men  into  swine.  Nemesis  was  already  digging  a  pauper's 
grave  for  this  queen  of  the  streets,  but  meanwhile  the  lugu- 
brious thing  that  was  once  a  man  sits  on  the  stairs  with 
shaven  head  and  ungartered  stockings  in  the  penultimate 
stage  of  his   malady. 

Ah  !  the  radiant  day  when  he  entered  the  hospital  with 
her  miniature  round  his  neck,  and  it  seemed  to  his  exalted 
vision  that  it  was  the  new  palace  he  had  built  for  his  love. 
It  was  on  one  of  these  beatific  days,  which  disclosed  the 
nature  of  his  malady,  that  he  scratched  on  the  post  of  the 
staircase  a  shrine  for  his  and  her  initials.  Once  he  tried  to 
tell  the  demented  tailor  of  her  surpassing  beauty,  but  the 


A  rake's  progress"  (Plate  VIII. 

(The  second  ''state"  of  the  engraving.) 


A   PIRATICAL   IMITATION    OF    HOGARTH's   ENGRAVING. 


To  face  p.  247.. 


HOGARTH  247 

tailor   only    gibbered    idiotically    over    his    yard    measure, 
squatting,  as  of  old,  cross-legged  on  the  floor. 

The  story  of  the  two  patients  in  bed  I  have  already  told 
in  the  last  chapter,  putting  it  for  literary  purposes  into  the 
mouth  of  a  keeper.  In  one  of  the  cells  you  may  see 
Nebuchadnezzar,  ere  he  made  his  lair  with  the  beasts  of 
the  field  ;  in  the  other  cell  you  may  hear  a  Bunyan  crying 
out  in  the  iron  cage  of  despair  that  the  very  heavens  must 
fall  on  so  vile  a  wretch. 

Just  one  last  paragraph  from  my  handbook  to  Hogarth. 

There  are  two  visitors — a  fashionable  lady  and  her  maid 
— in  the  gallery,  as  unconcerned  as  the  patients  at  the  pathos 
of  the  play.  Strolling  up  and  down,  as  people  did  at  the 
time,  amidst  the  ruins  of  modesty  and  decency,  the  lady  in 
pink  only  permits  herself  to  leer  through  the  sticks  of  her  fan 
at  something  which  we  cannot  see ;  less  hypocritical,  or  not 
so  refined,  the  lady's  maid  gazes  and  describes. 

Terrible  moralist,  you  would  rob  even  the  most  shameful 
thought  of  its  fig  leaves  ! 

The  original  plate  of  the  engraving  was  much  worked  on, 
and  some  alterations  were  made  in  the  faces  and  shadows  of 
later  editions.  Moreover,  Hogarth  himself  re-touched  it  in 
1763  (a  year  before  his  death),  drawing  on  the  walls  of  the 
ward  Britannia  seated,  as  on  our  copper  coinage,  by  the  side 
of  her  shield,  but  with  dishevelled  mien  and  a  distracted 
visage. 
'^  In  1763  Methodism  was  still  speeding  over  land  and  sea 
with  its  cross  of  fire,  and  the  mob  was  huzzaing  Wilkes, 
undeterred  by  the  ugliness  or  immorality  of  its  idol.  Hogarth 
only  saw  the  hysterical  side  of  revivalism,  and  he  felt  a 
mortal  antipathy  towards  Wilkes,  as  an  unpatriotic 
demagogue.  England  must  therefore  (so  he  reasoned)  have 
lost  her  senses  to  show  any  favour  either  to  Wilkes  or 
to  Methodism. 

Piratical  imitations  of  Hogarth's  "  Bedlam  "  were  actually 
on  the  market  before  it  was  published.  In  one  of  them, 
which  I  have  reproduced,  Sarah  Young  has  fallen  into  a 
swoon,  and  her  friends   are  trying  to  bring  her  round,     A 


248     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

milder  "  pope  "  Is  giving  his  benediction  to  the  world,  and 
the  vessel  of  gruel  is  retained  from  the  original.  There  are, 
however,  several  new  characters  in  the  scene.  "  Cheshire 
Johnson  "  taps  his  forehead  with  one  finger,  while  he  holds 
in  his  hand  the  libretto  of  a  crazy  opera:  there  is  the  intellec- 
tual poet  in  front  of  the  pope  with  his  "  song  to  Phyllis." 
The  second  figure  to  the  left  of  the  poet  is  a  political 
pamphleteer,  soured  by  the  meanness  and  ingratitude  of  his 
party  :  he  is  casting  a  suspicious  glance  at  a  female  patient 
who  is  studying  a  rather  grim   visage  in  a  cracked  mirror. 

Hogarth,  successful  in  his  own  field  but  covetous  of  other 
fields  of  art,  had  his  rivals,  and  their  hour  struck  at  last. 

In  1753  he  wrote,  or  fathered,  his  "  Analysis  of  Beauty," 
which  holds  up  the  serpentine  line  as  the  sole  canon  of 
beauty  and  grace.  The  caricaturists  had  a  carnival  week 
over  the  obscurities  and  incoherencies  of  the  treatise.  Paul 
Sandby,  for  example,  consigned  Hogarth  to  the  incurable 
ward  of  the  "Rake's  Progress,"  where  he  is  painting  a  wall 
of  his  cell  with  his  religious  pictures  (worthless  daubs, 
according  to  the  critics),  while  a  bundle  of  his  engravings 
hangs  from  the  ceiling.  He  is  chained  by  the  leg,  but  the 
chain  assumes  the  double  curve  of  beauty.  He  is  as  fantasti- 
cally dressed  as  he  has  dressed  up  his  models  in  the  picture, 
and  on  his  head  is  a  crown  of  straw  with  an  ink-pot  and 
quill  pen  perched  on  the  top  of  it — everything  somehow 
simulating  the  line  of  beauty. 

The  tormentor  now  proceeds  to  rub  salt  into  the  wounds 
of  his  victim's  vanity.  On  the  left  wall  of  the  cell  there  is 
a  long  straw  bed,  and  above  it  faintly  traced  a  pyramid,  a 
constituent  of  perfect  beauty.  Within  it  is  the  orb  of  world- 
sovereignty,  but  higher  still  is  Hogarth's  crown  of  pre- 
eminence, which  other  artists,  see-sawing  on  paint  brushes,  are 
attacking.  Nearer  heaven,  or  the  ceiling,  is  the  painter  in 
divine  glory:  his  feet  (as  in  an  Assumption)  are  on  the  moon, 
whose  horns  are  lines  of  beauty,  and  at  the  back  of  his 
angelic  wings  stream  the  rays  of  a  sun  in  splendour. 

Parallel  with  this  apotheosis  of  Hogarth  are  two  lines 
of  painters,    poets,   and    other   artists.     In    the   nearer   line, 


HOGARTH  249 

adoring  artists  eagerly  mount  on  one  another's  shoulders 
with  gestures  of  ecstacy  and  worship  :  in  the  farther  line, 
the  worshippers  strive  to  climb  up  into  the  presence  of  the 
Sun  God,  but  dazzled  by  his  effulgence,  tumble  headlong, 
like  Icarus,  into  space. 

Among  the  governors  who  built  the  incurable  wards, 
arranged  an  infirmary,  and  lowered  the  fees,  there  are  many 
notable  names.  Edward  Colston  endowed  Bristol  as  well 
as  Bethlem  :  Edward  Gibbon,  who  rented  a  basement  under 
the  hospital,  was  the  grandfather  of  the  historian :  Dean 
Atterbury,  who  had  been  the  preacher  at  Bridewell,  com- 
posed the  charge  which  is  still  read  aloud  in  open  court  to 
every  governor,  save  those  who  represent  the  city,  on  his  ad- 
mittance. 

Then  there  were  the  three  Rawlinsons — the  lord  mayor 
(our  president)  and  his  two  sons,  Richard  and  Thomas. 
Thomas  is  the  "  Tom  Folio "  of  satire,  who  had  to  sleep 
in  the  passage,  because  his  rooms  were  all  choked  up  with 
books.  Dr.  Richard  Rawlinson  was  the  famous  antiquary, 
who  enriched  the  Bodleian  Library  with  pictures  and  manu- 
scripts. Amongst  his  legacies  was  a  gift  to  the  hospital  of 
ten  guineas  as  an  equivalent  for  the  coffee  served  to  him 
at  the  monthly  meetings  of  the  "  Grand  Committee "  at 
Bethlem. 

The  last  to  be  honoured  with  introduction  to  the  reader 
shall  be  the  author  of  "  Gulliver's  Travels."  Dean  Swift  ^ 
was  elected  a  governor  with  Atterbury  26th  February,  17 14. 
I  have  found  no  record  of  any  attendance  of  his  at  court 
or  dinner,  but  in  1722  (as  Dr.  Leeper,  Medical  Superinten- 
dent of  St.  Patrick's  Hospital,  reminds  me)  he  used  his 
position  to  nominate  one  Beaumont  for  admission  into 
Bethlehem  Hospital. 

"  Beaumont  is  mad  in  London  riding  through  the  streets 
on  his  Irish  horse  with  the  rabble  after  him,  and  throwing 
his  money  about  the  street.  I  have  sent  to  the  secretary 
of  the  governors  of  Bedlam  to  have  him  sent  there,  for  you 
know  I  have  the  honour  to  be  a  governor." 

Bedlam  had  quite  a  fascination  for  Swift,  and  he   made 


2 so     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

considerable  copy  out  of  his  visits  to  it.  In  three  of  his 
works  at  least,  he  plays  with  the  whimsical  fancies  which 
rose  to  the  surface  as  he  sauntered  through  the  noisy,  fetid 
galleries.  For  example,  in  "A  Tale  of  a  Tub"  (1704)  he 
devotes  section  ix  to  "  a  digression  concerning  the  use 
and  improvement  of  madness  in  a  commonwealth."  Antici- 
pating Nisbet  on  the  "  Insanity  of  Genius,"  he  starts  with 
the  theory  that  great  conquerors,  founders  of  religious  and 
political  schools  "  have  generally  been  persons,  whose  reason 
was  disturbed."  Would  it  not,  therefore,  be  worth  while  (he 
archly  queries)  appointing  commissioners  to  search  Bedlam 
for  suitable  people  to  command  regiments  during  war,  to 
carry  out  the  less  agreeable  researches  of  the  laboratory,  or 
to  bawl  and  wrangle  in  the  pandemonium  of  a  law  court  or 
a  contested  election  ?  Here,  for  instance,  you  have  a  patient 
tearing  his  straw  to  pieces,  swearing  and  blaspheming,  and 
biting  his  grating.  Well,  give  him  a  regiment  and  send 
him  to  Flanders.  In  another  cell  you  find  a  person  of 
foresight  and  insight.  "  He  walks  daily  in  one  pace,  and 
entreats  your  penny  with  due  gravity  and  ceremony :  talks 
much  of  hard  times  and  taxes  :  bars  up  the  wooden  shutters 
of  his  cell  regularly  at  eight  o'clock  :  dreams  of  fires  and 
shoplifters  and  customers."  Now  why  should  the  city  of 
London  be  deprived  of  such  a  model  tradesman  ?  Let 
the  man  out  at  once ! 

The  foundation  of  the  incurable  establishment  in  1733 
suggested  to  the  dean  a  satire  on  moral  incurables.  It  is 
entitled  "  A  serious  and  useful  scheme  to  make  an  hospital 
for  incurables,"  and  the  author  appropriately  represents  it  as 
issuing  "from  my  garret  in  Moorfields  August  20th,  1733." 
Incurable  fools,  incurable  rogues,  incurable  liars,  the  in- 
curably vain  or  envious  were  to  be  eligible  for  admission 
on  urgency  orders,  and  Jonathan  Swift  hoped  that  a  certi- 
ficate as  an  "  incurable  scribbler  "  would  elect  him  a  patient 
on  the  foundation. 

One  of  his  latest  satires  was  "The  Legion  Club"  (1736). 
"The  Legion  Club"  of  political  demoniacs  is  the  Irish 
House  of  Commons,  which  may  (he  snarls)   be  considered 


"  HOGARTH    IN   BEDLAM." 
A  parody  of  Hogarth's  "  Bedlam." 


To  face  p.  250. 


HOGARTH  251 

as  the  Bedlam  of  Dublin,  and  receive  an  endowment 
under  the  dean's  will.  Throughout  his  coarse  and  brutal 
verses  the  allusions  to  familiar  scenes  in  Bedlam  are  fre- 
quent : — 

"  Keeper,  I  must  now  retire 
You  have  done  what  I  desire. 
j^But  I  feel  my  spirits  spent 
With  the  noise,  the  sight,  the  scent," 

The  dean  has  left  us  an  account  of  one  of  his  visits  to 
the  hospital  in  one  of  his  bright,  chatty  letters  to  Stella  on 
9th  December,  17 10,  telling  her  how  they  had  spent  it — 
three  hackney  coaches  full  of  them — seeing  the  sights  with 
children  and  nursemaids.  The  hospital  seems  to  have  given 
them  quite  an  appetite  ! 

"  Set  out  at  ten  o'clock  to  the  Tower,  and  saw  the  lions  ; 
then  to  Bedlam  ;  then  dined  at  the  chop-house  behind  the 
Exchange ;  and  concluded  the  night  at  the  Puppet  Show. 
The  ladies  were  all  in  mobs ;  how  do  you  call  it  ?  un- 
dressed ;  and  it  was  the  rainiest  day  that  ever  dripped  ; 
and  I  am  weary,  and  it  is  now  past  eleven." 

It  was  the  dean  of  St.  Patrick's  who  said — with  a  pre- 
sentiment of  his  doom — to  his  friend.  Dr.  Young,  in  17 17, 
"  I  shall  be  like  that  tree  ;  I  shall  die  at  the  top."  As  early 
as  1 73 1  it  was  in  his  mind  to  leave  his  fortune  to  "build 
a  hospital  called  Bedlam  in  Dublin."     And  in  1740 — 

"  He  gave  the  little  wealth  he  had 
To  build  a  home  for  fools  and  mad, 
And  show'd  by  one  satiric  touch 
No  nation  wanted  it  so  much." 


CHAPTER    XXVIII 

WHITEFIELD,    WESLEY,    AND     AN     EARTH- 
QUAKE 

In  the  court  room  of  the  Foundling  Hospital  there-  is  a 
painting  by  Haytley  of  the  Bethlera  of  1745  which  has 
quite  a  chronological  interest,  as  indicating  some  of  the 
alterations  carried  out  from  time  to  time  in  the  frontage. 
The  great  gates,  for  instance,  are  now  set  back  several  feet, 
and  the  outside  wall  breaks  at  its  centre  into  two  half 
crescents,  which  lead  up  to  them.  The  ground  has  been 
levelled  up,  and  steps  are  no  longer  necessary. 

This  outside  wall  is  plastered  over  with  public  notices 
and  advertisements,  while  the  wooden  palings,  which  run 
parallel  with  it  on  the  other  side  of  the  gravelled  pro- 
menade, are  "  befringed  "  (to  quote  Pope's  description)  with 
the  fluttering  broadsheets  of  the  ballad-monger.  Between 
these  palings  and  the  long  line  of  wall  stand  some  stalls 
for  the  sale  of  second-hand  books,  and  just  such  a  book- 
worm as  Dr.  Tyson  or  Richard  Rawlinson  is  nibbling  into 
some  scarce  old  folio — it  may  be  a  Stow,  or  a  Dugdale — 
which  alludes  to  our  earlier  history. 

The  fields  in  front  of  the  hospital — divided  at  this  date 
into  four  quarters  by  gravel  walks  and  planted  with  elms 
— made  up  Lower  Moorfields.  Finsbury  Circus  approxi- 
mately occupies  the  ground  at  the  present  time.  But 
Middle  and  Upper  Moorfields  stretched  away  towards  the 
north  in  the  shape  of  an  unenclosed  common.  Fairs  were 
held  upon  it  at  holiday  times,  and  it  was  generally  fre- 
quented by  vile  and  dissolute  characters.     On  this  common, 


THE    PORTER  S   BADGE. 

(See  p.  413.) 


"harlequin   METHODIST.'' 

The  date  of  this  print  is  1763,  and  the  theatrical  setting?  of  the  satire  reflects  the  attack  made  on 

Whitefield  by  Foote,  the  actor. 


To  face  p.  253. 


WHiTEFlELD,   WESLEY— AN  EARTHQUAKE    253 

where  to-day  Finsbury  Square  displays  the  brass  plates 
of  doctors  and  dentists,  multitudes  used  to  assemble, 
promising  themselves  some  capital  sport  in  the  baiting  of 
the  first  preachers  of  the  Evangelical  Revival,  George 
Whitefield  and  John  Wesley. 

The  caricaturists  of  the  period  lost  no  opportunity  of 
manufacturing  significant  links  of  association  between  these 
revivalists  and  the  Bedlam,  which — to  the  satirist's  eye — 
seemed  to  look  down  upon  their  emotional  converts  with 
an  assured  air  of  proprietorship. 

For  example,  in  the  unsigned  print  here  reproduced, 
Whitefield  is  a  harlequin  in  mask  and  spangles,  who  has 
disguised  his  identity  and  true  character  behind  gown  and 
bands.  Among  the  types  of  a  Moorfields  audience  which 
are  grouped  on  the  stage,  where,  according  to  the  cynic,  the 
preacher  is  playing  the  hypocrite,  there  is  a  young  buck 
from  the  Temple,  accompanied  by  some  modish  damsels. 
They  have  come  to  flirt  and  to  scoff,  but  they  will  certainly 
not  remain  to  pray.  On  the  other  side  of  the  preaching- 
stool  there  are  many  awakened  sinners,  whose  gestures  betray 
their  emotions.  "  What  shall  I  do  to  be  saved  ? "  seems 
to  be  the  cry  wrung  from  the  conscience  of  the  repentant 
procuress  in  the  centre.  An  old  rake — not,  alas  !  converted 
— glances  at  her  with  a  quizzical  look,  reminiscent  of  other 
days  and  more  carnal  pleasures. 

Let  us  do  justice  to  the  wicked  humour  of  the  satirist  by 
noting  (as  he  would  wish)  that  the  harlequinade  is  set  on  the 
stage  of  a  theatre,  where  Bethlehem  Hospital  serves  as  the 
appropriate  scenery  of  some  farcical  acting.  The  reader 
must  imagine  himself  to  be  sitting  among  the  audience, 
sniggering  over  each  vile  innuendo  and  roaring  aloud  at  every 
topical  hit. 

Perhaps  the  artist  who  sketched  the  scene  caricatured  in 
the  illustration  actually  heard  Whitefield  enliven  his  rhetoric, 
as  he  adjusted  his  gown  and  pointed  dramatically  to  the 
hospital,  with  the  story  of  Joseph  Periam. 
^  Periam,  who  came  from  Hatton  Garden,  was  admitted 
into  the  hospital  23rd  December,  1738,  one  of  his  securities 


254     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

being    a    tenant    of    ours    at    the    "  Magpie,"    Bishopsgate 
Without. 

According  to  his  sister,  Periam  had  interpreted  the  Bible 

/  literally,  rather  than  after  the  spirit.  He  had  "  prayed  with- 
out ceasing,"  but  so  loudly  as  to  be  heard  from  the  bottom  to 
the  top  of  a  four-storeyed  house.  He  had  obeyed  to  the  very 
letter  the  command  to  sell  all  that  he  had  to  give  to  the  poor, 
leaving  himself  only  the  clothes   in  which  he    knelt.     The 

r  result  was  that  he  found  himself  lodged  in  a  private  asylum, 
from  which  he  was  afterwards  transferred  to  a  "  cold  place 
without  windows  "  in  Bethlehem  Hospital.  On  his  arrival  he 
was  seized  by  some  of  the  keepers,  and  cursed  with  fervour 
I  and  fluency  as  "  one  of  Whitefield's  gang."  A  gag  in  the 
shape  of  a  large  key  was  then  forced  into  his  mouth,  and  a 
more  than  generous  dose  of  medicine  poured  down  his  throat. 
Some  days  later  Periam  to  his  delight  found  lying  about  the 
ward  to  which  he  was  promoted  a  sermon  by  Whitefield,  and 
got  into  correspondence  with  its  author.  A  second  letter 
from  "  No.  50 "  was  handed  to  the  revivalist  on  5th  May, 
1739,  when  he  was  preaching  on  Kennington  Common. 
Periam  complained  that  he  was  debarred  the  use  of  candles, 
and  consequently  of  books,  from  seven  at  night  till  seven 
next  morning,  and,  incidentally,  asked  for  some  advice  as  to 
the  profession — that  of  an  attorney — to  which  his  father 
proposed  to  article  him. 

Whitefield  replied  to  this  part  of  the  letter  by  urging  that 
it  was  a  dangerous  experiment  for  a  Christian  to  become  a 
lawyer,  and  a  little  later  sent  two  well-known  Methodists  to 
intercede  with  the  committee  for  Periam's  discharge.  The 
public  opinion  of  the  day  was  hostile  to  open-air  preaching, 
and  the  committee  behaved  with  great  brusqueness,  frankly 
informing  the  deputation  that  they  were  just  as  mad  as  the 
object  of  their  visit.  However,  on  19th  May,  1739,  Dr.  James 
Monro,  the  physician  of  Bethlem,  pronounced  "  No.  50  "  con- 
valescent, and  he  accompanied  Whitefield  on  his  next  voyage 
to  the  English  colony  of  Georgia,  in  America,  where  he  died 
after  some  years  of  good  service  rendered  to  the  orphanage 
which  Whitefield  had  established  in  Savannah. 


WHITEFIELD,   WESLEY— AN  EARTHQUAKE   255 

On  a  memorable  Sunday,  17th  June,  1739,  as  early  as 
seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  John  Wesley  first  preached  in 
the  open  air  to  a  London  audience.  The  windows  of  the 
hospital  commanded  a  full  view  of  the  vast  congregation, 
and,  even  if  the  actual  words  of  the  preacher  were  inaudible, 
the  fervid  ejaculations  of  sympathizers  and  the  noisy  inter- 
ruptions of  the  roughs  must  have  created  a  good  deal  of 
excitement  in  the  corridors,  stirring  sluggish  waters  and  pro- 
voking geysers  of  loquacity.  Perhaps  Diana  Hodges,  the 
wife  of  the  steward,  heard  the  famous  text  ('*  Ho  !  every  one 
that  thirsteth "),  or  "  honest  Wood,"  the  porter,  learnt  it 
from  a  passer-by.  At  any  rate,  you  may  be  sure  that  it  was 
discussed  in  Bethlem  with  as  much  heat  as  a  summer's  day 
permitted,  and  possibly  with  just  a  little  mystical  incoherence. 

On  two  occasions  at  least  did  John  Wesley  pass  through 
the  iron  grille  into  the  wards  on  an  errand  of  mercy.  On 
one  of  them  he  had  a  rather  mortifying  experience,  and  he 
writes  about  it  in  his  diary  under  22nd  February,  1750,  with 
bitter  irony  : — 

"  I  went  to  see  a  young  woman  in  Bedlam  ;  but  I  had  not 
talked  to  her  long  before  one  gave  me  to  know  that  none  of 
the  preachers  were  to  come  here.  So  we  are  forbidden  to  go 
to  Newgate  for  fear  of  making  them  wicked,  and  to  Bedlam 
for  fear  of  making  them  mad  !  " 

There  was  some  justification,  no  doubt,  for  the  ban  pro- 
nounced against  John  Wesley  by  physician  and  committee. 
Wherever  he  preached  there  were  extraordinary  outbursts  of 
contagious  hysteria.  At  his  meetings  many  women  and  some 
men  would  suddenly  fall,  as  if  mortally  wounded,  to  the 
ground,  where  they  writhed  and  howled  in  an  agony  of  pain 
or  terror.  Meanwhile  the  singing  and  praying  proceeded 
without  intermission,  and  just  as  suddenly,  in  the  course  of 
ten  minutes  or  an  hour,  these  very  same  persons  would  break 
out  into  hymns  and  ecstasies  of  joy.  They  were  then  "  con- 
verted." 

There  are  always  people  suffering  from — or  predisposed  to 
— that  morbid  exaltation  or  despair,  which  so  paradoxically 
finds  its   food  and  its   logic  in  the  Scriptures.     Such  cases 


/ 


256     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 


would  be  the  first  to  be  unfavourably  affected  by  the  atmo- 
sphere of  revivalism,  and  no  doubt  there  were  in  the  hospital 

as  it  was  persistently  and  malevo- 
lently alleged,  many  examples  of 
what  the  eighteenth  century  called 
"  enthusiasm  " — spiritual  intoxication 
or  madness. 

Similar  phenomena  have,  of  course, 
been  witnessed  in  the  Christian 
Church  from  the  apostolic  age  with 
its  "  unknown  tongues  "  onwards,  and 
no  campaign — even  on  a  spiritual 
field — can  be  waged  without  its  list 
of  killed  and  wounded.  Though  this 
is  true,  yet  "  God  is  not  the  author 
of  confusion,"  and  too  much  stress 
cannot  be  laid  on  the  danger — in 
religion  and  in  politics— of  appealing 
too  exclusively  to  the  emotional  side 
of  human  nature.  There  are  strange 
and  uncouth  tenants  lying  asleep  in 
the  cellars  of  the  human  house. 
Some  religious  or  political  tocsin 
sounds,  when  to  our  dismay  and 
disgust  they  swarm  into  the  upper 
storeys  of  the  mind,  where  they  break 
windows,  set  furniture  on  fire,  and 
dance  the  "Carmagnole"  over  reason, 
decency,  and  self-control. 

With  the  more  obvious  forms  of 
insanity  John  Wesley  was  familiar, 
and  some  of  his  prescriptions  for 
their  cure  may  be  glanced  at  in 
"  Primitive  Physic,"  which  he  first 
published  in  1747.  He  advises — in 
acute  cases   of  mental  excitement — 


The  result  of  Wesley's  preaching 
was  disastrous  to  unbalanced 
minds,  according  to  Hogarth  in 
his  "Credulity,  Superstition  and 
Fanaticism"    (1763),    from   which 

this  detail  of  the  thermometer  has  that    Water    should    be    poured    from 

been  taken.  ^ 

{Drawn  by  Mr.  James  Arrow.) 


a  kettle  upon  the  head  of  the  patient. 


WHITEFIELD,   WESLEY— AN  EARTHQUAKE   257 

or  the  patient  may  be  placed  "  under  a  great  waterfall,"  so 
long  as  his  strength  will  bear.  Quite  an  anticipation  of  the 
immersion-bath  and  the  shower-bath  treatment  of  the  present 
day. 

But   in    the   obscurer   and    more  subtle   forms  of  mental 
malady  he  only  saw  a  soul  in  deadly  conflict  with  Apollyon, 


DR.    JOHN   MONRO. 

In  the  famous  election  of.  1784  Pitt  defeated  Fox  and  his  followers,  who  had  hitherto  been 
in  the  majority.  Fox  is  represented  as  having  gone  raving  mad  in  consequence  of  this 
catastrophe.  It  has  therefore  been  necessary  to  call  in  the  physician  of  Bethlehem  Hospital. 
He  at  once  orders  the  removal  of  Fox,  who  is  already  in  a  strait  jacket,  to  the  incurable  ward. 

{From  the  caricature  of  "The  Incurables,"  by  Gillray.) 


and  his  remedies  were  purely  spiritual.  The  physician  of 
Bethlem,  on  the  other  hand,  bundled  all  cases  of  hallucination 
and  of  religious  melancholia  without  further  argument  into 
the  hospital,  and  ordered  the  apothecary  to  apply  a  blister. 
No  wonder,  then,  that  the  mother  of  the  Wesleys  used  to 
describe  him  as  "  that  wretched  fellow,  Monro  !  " 

John  Wesley  has  jotted   down  in   the  pages  of  his  diary 

18 


258     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

several  allusions  to  the  earthquakes  which  disturbed  London 
and  its  slumbers  on  8th  February  and  8th  March,  1750. 

The  second  of  these  earthquakes  was  the  more  violent, 
and,  as  it  had  occurred  exactly  one  month  after  the  first, 
religious  people  regarded  it  as  a  warning  from  God.  Charles 
Wesley  issued  a  sermon  and  the  bishop  of  London  a  pastoral 
letter,  the  burden  of  both  being  that  national  repentance 
could  alone  avert  the  chastisement  overhanging  a  depraved 
and  irreligious  nation. 

In  the  midst  of  the  prevailing  excitement  a  Lifeguards- 
man  ran  about  the  town  prophesying  that  a  third  earthquake 
would  swallow  up  London  and  Westminster  on  4th  April, 
1750 — just  a  lunar  month  from  the  second  earthquake. 

From  the  first  day  of  April  quite  a  panic  set  in.  The 
roads  out  of  London  were  crowded  with  people  on  foot  or  in 
coaches,  flying  from  the  City  of  Destruction  and  the  "  wrath 
to  come."  Horace  Walpole  has  ridiculed  the  manifold 
absurdities  of  this  panic-stricken  exodus  with  a  light  humour 
and  cynicism  all  his  own  : — 

"  Several  women  have  made  earthquake  gowns,  i.e.,  warm 
gowns  to  sit  in  out  of  doors  all  night.  Others  go  this  even- 
ing to  an  inn  ten  miles  out  of  town,  where  they  are  to  play 
brag  till  5  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  then  come  back,  I 
suppose,  to  look  for  the  bones  of  their  husbands  and  families 
under  the  rubbish.  Dick  Leveson,  on  his  way  home  the 
other  night,  knocked  at  several  doors,  and  in  a  watchman's 
voice  cried  :  '  Past  four  o'clock  and  a  dreadful  earthquake.' " 
One  day  before  the  threatened  earthquake  the  prophet 
was  "found  delirious,"  and,  according  to  Walpole,  sent  to 
Bethlehem  Hospital.  The  colonel  sent  for  the  man's  wife, 
and  asked  her  if  her  husband  had  ever  been  disordered 
before.  She  cried  :  "  Oh  dear  !  my  lord,  he  is  not  so  now. 
If  your  lordship  would  but  get  any  sensible  man  to  examine 
him,  you  would  find  he  is  quite  in  his  right  mind." 

According  to  the  Whitehall  Evening  Post  of  31st  March 
to  3rd  April,  1750,  the  Lifeguardsman  was  a  Swiss,  a  man 
of  fortune,  whose  mind  was  periodically  disturbed  on  religious 
subjects.      He   considered    himself    the   "  occasion     of    the 


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WHITEFIELD,   WESLEY— AN  EARTHQUAKE   259 

earthquake,"   and    says   that   he  "has  a    ball  of  fire    in    his 
body,"  and  possesses  a  "  sword  which  will  cut  devils  in  two," 

The  arrest  of  the  crazy  Lifeguardsman  did  not  abate  the 
panic,  and  it  is  not  likely  that  anybody  in  the  hospital  went 
to  sleep  that  fateful  Wednesday  night,  when  the  blast  of  the 
last  trump  might  at  any  moment  usher  in  the  Day  of  Doom. 
Excited  people  were  moving  to  and  fro  all  the  night  long, 
and  the  dark  fields  in  front  of  Bethlem  were  lit  up  with 
numberless  fires,  round  which  shivering  families  were 
bivouacking  in  terror  and  discomfort  behind  their  bedding 
and  furniture.  However,  Thursday  morning  dawned  with 
imperturbable  punctuality  ;  London  had  not  met  the  fate  of 
Pompeii  ages  before,  or  even  of  Lisbon  five  years  later,  and 
Charles  Wesley  arose  after  several  hours  of  calm,  refreshing 
sleep. 

The  G enteral  Advertiser  of  13th  April,  1750,  is  in  hopes 
that  Mr.  Hogarth  will  oblige  the  town  with  a  print  of  the 
fright  and  flight.  I  do  not  find  Hogarth's  name  anywhere 
associated  with  the  contemporary  satire  which  illustrates 
my  story,  but  it  was  certainly  executed  by  a  pupil  or 
imitator. 

The  most  dramatic  figure  in  it  is  the  Lifeguardsman  on 
horseback :  he  is  urging  on  the  panic-stricken  crowd,  waving 
the  flaming  sword  of  "  Prophecy."  Below  him  two  credulous 
women  are  reading  with  dismay  the  "  Lifeguardsman's 
Prophecy,"  which  they  have  just  purchased  from  the  bawling 
hawker.  A  little  farther  on  is  a  carriage  and  four  horses, 
waiting  to  take  up  the  decrepit  owner,  whose  buxom  wife 
has  evidently  transferred  her  affections  to  a  younger  man. 
Other  figures  are  some  Phrynes  from  Drury  Lane  in  a 
handsome  equipage,  and  an  itinerant  gin-seller,  who  has  an 
unfailing  tonic  for  the  nerves — very  much  in  demand. 

I  meant  to  have  taken  the  reader  to  see  the  new  apothe- 
cary's shop  just  fitted  up  after  the  model  of  the  dispensary 
at  St.  Bartholomew's,  but  Mr.  John  Winder  (apothecary, 
1751-1772)  fears  that  it  would  be  too  "dangerous"  an 
adventure,  as  the  only  way  to  it  lies  through  the  "  long 
gallery  of  the  men."     I  will,  however,  entertain  him  with  an 


26o     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 


anecdote    illustrative     of     the     fascination    which     Bedlam 
exercised  on  the  provincial  imagination. 

In  1749,  one  William  Hutton — a  stocking- weaver  who 
became  a  historian — walked  from  Nottingham  to  London 
and  back,  spending  three  days  amid  the  manifold  pleasures 
of  the  town,  at  a  cost  of  ten  shillings  and  eightpence.     He 


AT  THE   SIGN   OF  THE   DRAGON. 

The  centre  block  of  the  second  hospital. 
{Drawn  by  Mr.  Sydney  Howarth.) 

saw  St.  Paul's,  the  king's  palace,  and  everything  else  he 
could  see  for  nothing.  But  he  was  not  satisfied.  "  I  wished 
to  see  a  number  of  curiosities,  but  my  shallow  pocket  forbade. 
One  penny  to  see  Bedlam  was  all  I  could  spare."  And  in 
this  haunt  of  romance  and  whimsicality  he  met  a  "multitude 
of  characters "  and  heard  a  "  variety  of  curious  anecdotes," 
which  more  than  recompensed  him  for  the  loss  of  his  penny. 


CHAPTER   XXIX 

"THE    BETSY    PRIG    SCHOOL    OF    NURSING" 

Let  me  give  you  a  glimpse  of  Bethlehem  Hospital  and  of  its 
sister  hospitals  in  the  year  1752.  In  this  year  Dr.  John  Monro 
(the  second  of  his  dynasty)  succeeded  his  father  as 
physician  of  Bethlem,  and  an  effort — unhappily  defeated — 
was  made  to  suppress  some  of  the  feasting  with  which  the 
governors  indulged  themselves  each  year  at  the  expense 
of  the  charities.  It  was  also  the  year  in  which  was  published 
the  first  edition  of  a  very  remarkable  little  book,  now  very 
scarce  and  valuable,  viz. : — "  Low  Life  :  or  one  Half  of  the 
World  does  not  know  how  the  other  Half  lives."  It  ran 
through  three  editions  between  1752  and  1764,  and  I  am 
quoting,   as  a  rule,  from  the  third  and  enlarged  edition. 

The  anonymous  author  removes  the  roofs  from  the  houses 
replaces  their  walls  with  panels  of  glass,  and,  if  it  is  night, 
lights  up  every  room  and  street  for  the  entertainment  of  the 
curious. 

It  is  to  no  purpose  that  the  clergyman  pretends  to  preach 

his    own    sermons,  the   watchman  not   to  have  an  amicable 

arrangement  with   the  burglar,  and  the  little   tradesmen  to 

know  nothing  of  gambling  and  the  alehouse.     You,  my  dear 

Mr.  Pry,  know  exactly  how  each  of  them  has  spent  every 

hour  of  the  day.     This  literary  Hogarth  has  a  tongue  as  well 

as  an  eye,   and   you   laugh  to  see   the  freemason    led  home 

drunk  from  his  lodge,  or  the  prisoners   at  Bridewell  playing 

"blind-man's    buff"  or    "hunt    the    slipper"   on     a    Sunday 

evening.     The  works  of  Thackeray  and    Besant  are  largely 

indebted  to   this   minute  and   graphic   panorama  of  London 

261 


262     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

life  ;  Sala  has  also  imitated  its  general  plan  in  his  "  Twice 
Round   the  Clock." 

The  action  of  the  drama  covers  the  twenty-four  hours  of 
Whit  Sunday,  21st  June,   1764. 

In  the  first  hour  of  the  new  day,  when  the  ballad-singers 


One  H  A  L  :  c-f  die  Y^c  r  l  d. 


Tlije  Other    H  /.  c  r    Lire, 

T  Vv'  E  N  1'  V "  "•  (J  t  il     lU'!  U  li  ., 

0-    If     X^     r--      A      V 
Cl"    O  ^  X\    it,-      ^'V     x^ 

Is  it  is  uru?lly  firent  within  the  Bi!'.  <>f  Mo^  i ,  i  try, 
Okuhtcu  for  the  Tv/.-2nty-fii-lt  of  '/  U  tV  IL 


With  art  ADDRES'^  to  th;  u  j-racu*-  and  lngea»-<j^.s 

a' 


Mn    i^  O  G  .f  ie  r  '-^ 


Lit  Fancv  ^tft'/j  <^t*  ny?  Bj'Cvn'TJ-^M. 


The     T  H  I  R  D      E  D  I  T  I  O  N. 


L    O    N'.D     O     K: 
Printed  for  Jo  Hv  LEvt.,  at  I//^<:.  M-X-^^,  n.xt  I^^ 
;/.*.7,  neat  ^/»«^#/m   1 764-        ^  ' 
[Pyk€  Oils  Shilling  and  ::ix-penco.3' 


are  sharing  with  the  professional  thieves  the  purses  they 
have  stolen  in  the  Saturday  markets,  few  of  our  patients 
have  managed  to  get  to  sleep.  The  ubiquitous  journalist  is 
below  their  ungiazed  bedrooms  which  look  out  on  London 
Wall,  and  he  jots  down  in  his  note-book: — "the  unhappy 
patients  of  Bethlehem   Hospital  employed  in  breaking  their 


"  THE  BETSY  PRIG  SCHOOL  OF  NURSING''     263 

/ 
wooden  bowls,  drawing  figures  with  chalk  on  their  partitions, 
rattling    their    chains,   and    making  a  terrible   outcry  occa- 
sioned by  the  heat  of  the  weather  having  too  great  an  effect 
upon  their  rambling  brains." 

The  hands  on  the  face  of  Bethlem's  clock  find  their  way 
through  the  darkness  till  they  point  to  six  this  summer's 
morning,  and  serious  folk  are  passing  the  hospital  on  their 
way  to  Upper  Moorfields  to  "  hear  their  beloved  apostle, 
Mr.  Wesley,"  whilst  asses'  milk,  in  which  Dr.  James  Monro 
had  such  unlimited  faith,  is  being  peddled  about  the  streets. 
Three  hours  later  the  surgeons  and  their  pupils  are  going 
their  rounds  in  the  hospital  wards,  or  visiting  their  private 
cases  in  the  city.  At  half-past  ten  the  bells  begin  to  ring 
for  church,  but  at  Bridewell  fledgling  barbers  are  practising 
their  'prentice  hands  on  the  agonized  faces  of  the  inmates. 

Paul,  the  inquisitive,  is  due  again  at  Bethlem  a  little  after 
noon,  but  he  has  just  time  on  his  way  from  church  to  make  a 
thumbnail  sketch  of  the  physician,  who  holds  that  a  good 
impression  is  a  genteel  and  legitimate  advertisement : — 

"  Physicians  in  their  chariots,  poring  over  books  to  give 
the  town  a  sense  of  their  religious  or  deep  study,  when 
perhaps  they  are  reading  maybe  a  ludicrous  pamphlet." 

At  the  hospital  there  is  boiled-beef  broth  and  bread,  and 
a  pint  of  small  (sometimes  the  contractors  supply  very  small) 
beer  for  each  patient.  But  our  cynical  guide  has  been — 
where  the  governors  do  not  usually  go — behind  the  scenes, 
and  this  is  his  revised  version  of  the  authorized  diet  table  : — 

"  The  nurses  of  Bethlehem  Hospital  are  carrying  the 
appointed  messes  in  wooden  bowls  to  the  people  under  their 
charge,  and  putting  by  the  best  part  of  it  for  their  ancient 
relations  and  more  intimate  friends,  who  are  to  come  and 
visit  them  in  the  afternoon." 

Throughout  our  history  the  keepers  have  constantly  fallen 
under  the  suspicion  of  stealing  from  their  charges  the  food 
rejected  by  people  who  were  too  ill  to  relish  it,  or  were  under 
the  delusion  that  it  had  been  tampered  with.  Indeed  all 
who  have  had  anything  to  do  with  the  stores  seem  to  have 
suffered  from  the  temptation,  which  still  haunts  every  public 


^64     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

institution,  to  help  themselves,  when  nobody  was  looking. 
The  steward  of  the  period,  who,  by  the  by,  was  blinded  by  a 
fire  at  the  hospital  in  1754,  died  a  thousand  pounds  in  debt 
to  the  governors,  and  one  of  the  governors  was  actually 
expelled  in  1777  for  sending  to  the  buttery  for  all  that  he 
fancied  or  wanted.  He  did  not  even  refrain  from  laying  his 
sacrilegious  hands  on  the  emetics  ! 

Everybody  has  heard  of  Sairey  Gamp  and  of  Betsey  Prig, 
so  highly  "  recommended  by  St.  Bartholomew's,"  and  I  hope 
that  occasional  quotations  from  such  a  classic  as  "  Martin 
Chuzzlewit "  will  provoke  reminiscent  chuckles. 

"  He  hates  his  nusses,"  petulantly  snapped  out  Mrs. 
Gamp  as  she  eyed  the  convalescent  Lewsome,  "  to  this 
hour.  They  always  does  it.  If  you  could  have  heard  the 
poor  dear  soul  a-findin'  fault  with  me  and  Betsy  Prig, 
you  would  have  wondered  how  it  is  we  don't  get  fretted 
to  the  tomb." 

It  would  really  appear  as  if  the  author  of  "  Low  Life  " 
and  of  his  contemporary  the  "  Country  Spy "  had  them- 
selves been  patients,  before  they  sat  down  to  scribble  their 
scathing  libels  on  London  hospitals  and  London  nurses, 
midway  in  the  eighteenth  century. 

But,  my  dear  nurses  of  Bart's  and  Bethlem,  you  need 
not  be  "  fretted  to  the  tomb  "  at  the  description  in  "  Low 
Life"  of  quite  an  ordinary  scene  in  a  hospital  of  1764 
between  ten  and  eleven  at  night.  Dickens  drove  out  the 
nurses  who  had  inherited  the  traditions  of  these  times. 

"  Some  nurses  and  watchers  at  St.  Bartholomew's,  St. 
Thomas's,  St.  George's,  Guy's,  the  London  Infirmary,  and 
others  getting  together,  when  they  think  a  poor  patient  is 
making  his  end  and  taking  their  pillow  from  under  their 
heads,  that  they  may  go  gently  out  of  the  world  a  few 
hours  sooner  than  they  would  otherwise  have  done.  In 
the  meanwhile  they  search  their  pockets,  conveying  away 
what  is  valuable  and  vouch  for  each  other  that  they  found 
nothing  but  a  tobacco  box,  or  some  trifling  thing  about 
them." 

Even  Mrs.  Gamp  respected  her  patient's  pockets,  so  long 


«  THE  BETSY  PRIG  SCHOOL  OE  NURSING''    265 

as  she  had  pickled  salmon  and  plenty  of  gin  and  water ; 
after  all,  she  only  took  away  the  sick  man's  pillow  to  place 
it  under  her  own  head  ! 

Fielding  and  Smollett  (a  surgeon)  write  very  much  in  the 
same  strain  about  the  treatment  of  the  sick  poor  in  the 
London  hospitals  ;  according  to  the  "  Country  Spy,"  if  you 
*'  saw  a  person  with  a  Friday  face  and  a  body  very  thin," 
you  might  at  once  conclude  that  he  had  that  day  "  come 
out  of  Bethlehem  or  a  hospital." 

The  "Country  Spy"  (c.  1750)  was  one  of  the  many 
imitations  of  the  "  London  Spy,"  which  has  been  cautiously 
tapped  in  an  earlier  chapter  ;  his  rambles  through  London 
contain  "  many  curious  remarks,  diverting  tales  and  merry 
jokes,"  which  are  quite  as  entertaining  and  not  nearly  as 
coarse  as  Edward  Ward's  spyings. 

The  author  of  the  satire  made  a  preliminary  reconnais- 
sance into  Bethlem,  where  he  inclined  his  credulous  ears 
to  the  romantic  tales  of  some  of  our  imaginative  ladies, 
but  the  reference  to  "  sisters "  in  the  following  quotation 
suggests  a  general  hospital.  Let  St.  Bartholomew's  and  St. 
Thomas's  dispute  for  the  honour  of  housing  the  medical 
student,  whose  amorous  "  duchess  "  was  traced  by  his  fellows 
to  the  purlieus  of  Drury  Lane  ! 

The  "  Country  Spy  "  had  noticed,  while  going  the  rounds 
of  the  wards  with  the  doctors,  that  the  patients  regarded 
the  sisters  and  nurses  with  a  "cowed  and  frightened  look." 
He  set  himself,  therefore,  to  find  out  the  reason  by  inviting 
nurses  and  convalescents  to  "  give  their  orders "  at  the 
tavern  frequented  by  both  parties.  He  came,  I  may  say, 
to  the  conclusion  that  the  nurses  were  a  "swearing,  bullying," 
set  of  viragoes.  A  full-length  portrait  would,  the  etcher 
adds,  turn  a  squeamish  stomach,  and  so  he  stays  his  graver 
with  these  parting  strokes  : — 

"  But  you  should  see  the  affected  animal  on  a  Thursday 
or  a  holiday  in  her  fine  clothes.  She  apes  the  gentlewoman 
in  wearing  silk,  but  the  clumsy  piece  of  mortality  looks 
more  like  an  oyster  woman,  though  bedizened  to  the  best 
advantage.     Nay :     she    must    touch    quality    forsooth,    and 


266     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

pretend  to  dance,  and  yet  the  best  of  her  performances 
is  to  hobble  a  cow's  courant."  A  courant  (let  me  explain) 
was  a  sort  of  waltz  ! 

In  1788,  on  the  contrary,  a  French  tourist,  on  a  flying 
visit  to  London,  speaks  very  highly  of  the  "  orderliness, 
method,  and  cleanliness  of  the  London  hospitals,"  our  own 
included.  The  French  hospitals  were  (he  admits)  absolutely 
lacking  in  these  qualities,  but  on  the  other  hand  he  missed 
the  tenderness  and  devotion  exhibited  in  French  hospitals 
by   women,  who   drew  their  inspiration  from  their  religion. 

"  I  never  saw  in  the  hospitals  consecrated  to  suffering 
the  delicate  feeling  which  is  marked  by  the  tone  of  voice, 
by  the  gestures  and  by  the  personal  attention,  in  fact, 
which  a  sick  man  would  have  had  from  his  wife  and 
children.  How  tenderly  in  France  would  a  sister  of  mercy 
support  and  serve  a  poor  wretch  worn  out  with  fever ! 
How  sweet  and  consoling  are  their  voices !  How  their 
eyes  fill  with  tears  over  a  dying  patient !  " 

I  am  afraid,  however,  that  during  the  greater  part  of 
the  century  under  review  the  nurses  of  Bethlem,  in  common 
with  those  of  other  hospitals,  were  trained  in  the  "  Betsy 
Prig  school  of  nursing." 

"  You  want,"  said  Mrs.  Gamp  to  poor  old  Chuffey,  "  a 
pitcher  of  cold  water  thrown  over  you,  to  bring  you 
round  ;  and  if  you  was  under  Betsey  Prig,  who  has  nussed 
a  many  lunacies,  and  well  she  knows  their  ways,  you'd 
have  it  too.  Spanish  flies  is  the  only  thing  to  draw  the 
nonsense  out  of  you,  and,  if  anybody  wanted  to  do  you 
a  kindness,  they'd  clap  a  blister  of  'em  on  y'r  head,  and 
put  a  mustard  poultige  on  y'r  back." 

Tradition  has  hitherto  asserted  without  a  shade  of  hesita- 
tion that  Christopher  Smart,  the  poet,  was  incarcerated  once, 
twice,  even  thrice,  in  Bethlehem  Hospital,  and  that  his 
glorious  "Song  to  David"  was  originally  written — in  dis- 
jointed lines  and  stanzas  at  any  rate — on  the  walls  of  one 
of  its  cells.  But  I  have  searched  in  vain  for  any  mention 
of  his  name  in  the  "  Admission  Book,"  in  the  "  Steward's 
Accounts,"  and  in  the  "  Minutes  of  the  Bethlem  Committee," 


jM^jmp'iajMWW 


THE   BACK    OF   BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL,    AS    IT   APPEARED    IN    l8l2. 

In  the  foreground  is  the  ancient  wall  of  London,  of  which  some  little  bits  are 

still  preserved  in  the  city.    The  shaft  to  the  left  may  be  the  chimney  of  the 

place  "where  the  dirty  straw  was  burnt. 

{Drawn  and  Etched  by  J.  T.  Smith  for  his  "Ancient  Topography  of  London,"  1815.) 


To  face  p.  266 


''THE  BETSY  PRIG  SCHOOL  OF  NURSING''     267 

between  1747  and  1765.  These  books  do  not  always,  it 
is  true,  appear  to  tally,  but  it  must  be  admitted  that  no 
contemporary  authority  actually  identifies  the  hospital  as 
the  place  of  his  seclusion.  On  the  contrary,  Mrs.  Piozzi  in- 
cidentally observes  that  he  was  "  first  sent  to  private 
lodgings/'  and  it  is,  perhaps,  significant  that  Smart  alludes, 
in  the  course  of  a  sketch  which  he  wrote  about  a  visit  to 
Bedlam,  to  a  medical  friend  of  his,  who  kept  and  managed 
a  private  asylum.  The  poverty  of  the  poet  would  have 
made  the  charity  of  Bethlem  his  only  resource,  but  this 
friend  may  have  intervened. 

There  was,  it  is  true,  some  ground  for  the  association 
of  the  poet's  name  with  the  hospital.  In  March,  1747, 
when  Kit  Smart  was  a  Fellow  of  Pembroke  College,  Cam- 
bridge, the  poet  Gray,  in  a  letter  to  Thomas  Warton, 
ventured  on  a  prophecy  : — 

"  Smart's  debts  are  increasing  daily,  and  he  takes  harts- 
horn from  morning  to  night.  Lawman,  the  mad  attorney? 
is  his  copyist,  and  truly  the  author  is  as  mad  as  he.  .  .  . 
And  for  his  vanity  and  facility  of  lying,  they  are  come 
to  their  full  maturity.  All  this  must  come  to  a  gaol,  or 
Bedlam." 

On  the  strength  of  this  passage  a  well-known  authority 
on  the  eighteenth  century  (Edmund  Gosse)  proceeded  to 
argue  in  a  literary  study  that,  in  all  probability,  the  poet 
was  shortly  afterwards  admitted  to  Bethlehem  Hospital. 
And  it  seemed  to  him  that  his  theory  was  confirmed  by 
some  entries  which  he  had  extracted  from  the  treasury 
records  of  Pembroke. 

These  entries,  indeed,  prove  that  in  1745,  175 1,  and  1752, 
"  Mr.  Smart  being  obliged  to  be  absent,"  it  was  ordered 
by  the  college  that  certain  allowances  in  money  should 
be  made  to  him  "in  lieu  of  commons."  It  is,  of  course, 
quite  possible  that  these  absences  were  due  to  mental  illness, 
but  the  evidence  of  Gray  and  other  contemporaries  rather 
suggests  that  he  was  at  such  times  in  hiding  from  his  London 
tailor  and  other  creditors. 

In  the  course  of  his  remarks  on  Smart's  life  and  genius, 


268     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

Dr.  Gosse  advanced  another  quotation,  but  the  conclusion 
he  drew  from  it  shows  that  he  blundered,  in  failing  to 
give  proper  weight  to  the  context  of  the  letter. 

"  We  have  a  man  here,"  writes  Gray  to  Walpole,  8th 
October,  1751,  "who  writes  a  good  hand,  but  he  has  little 
failings  that  hinder  my  recommending  him  to  you.  He 
is  lousy,  and  he  is  mad  :  he  sets  out  for  Bedlam  this  week." 

Assuredly  "  he "  in  this  passage  refers  to  Lawman,  and 
not  to  Smart.  Walpole  wants  a  copyist,  and  Lawman,  who 
had  already  acted  as  a  copyist  to  Smart,  might  otherwise 
have  suited  him.  However,  if  our  Admission  Book  is 
accurate.  Lawman  also  failed  to  present  himself  at  the 
doors  of  the  hospital.  In  any  case,  the  term  "Bedlam" 
has  often  only  a  general  significance  on  the  lips  of  Gray 
and  Walpole. 

The  balance  of  testimony,  therefore,  tends  to  discredit 
the  tradition  that  Smart  was  confined  in  Bethlem,  or  any- 
where else,  before  1753.  After  this  date  the  evidence  of 
his  insanity,  if  not  of  his  imprisonment  in  Bethlem,  is 
irrefutable. 

I  gather  from  an  authoritative  statement,  made  in  the 
memoirs  published  by  the  family  in  179 1,  that  he  had 
been  prostrated  by  temporary  attacks  of  alcoholic  insanity 
before  1756.  In  that  year,  however,  his  paroxysms  became 
so  violent  that  it  was  found  necessary  to  place  him  in  confine- 
ment— unfortunately  it  is  not  stated  where.  He  remained 
under  restraint  for  a  couple  of  years  at  least,  but  I  think  that 
he  must  have  been  at  large  about  the  beginning  of  1759, 
when  Garrick  played  in  a  comedy  for  his  benefit  at  Drury 
Lane.  I  should  judge  that  a  relapse — for  he  never  over- 
came his  intemperate  habits— occurred  about  a  year  later, 
and  that  he  did  not  emerge  from  this  attack  until  1763,  when 
Gray  advised  that  no  money  should  be  given  him,  until 
he  had  agreed  to  relinquish  the  legal  proceedings  with 
which  he  had  threatened  his  relations. 

It  may,  therefore,  have  been  in  1762  or  1763  that  Dr. 
Johnson  had  his  celebrated  interview  with  him.  Smart 
was   then    getting    fat,   although  working  every  day  in    the 


"  THE  BETSY  PRIG  SCHOOL   OF  NURSING''     269 

garden.  This  meant  rather  more  exercise  than  usual,  for, 
as  Dr.  Johnson  said  to  Dr.  Burney,  "  before  his  confinement 
he  had  to  walk  to  the  alehouse,  but  he  was  always  carried 
back  again." 

The  "  Song  to  David "  may  not  have  been  written  in 
Bethlehem  Hospital,  but  at  any  rate  in  175 1  the  poet  paid 
a  private  visit  there,  of  which  he  wrote  an  account  in  some 
pleasant  papers  after  the  style  of  Addison,  contributed  by 
him  to  the  "  Old  Woman's  Magazine,"  of  which  he  was 
the  editor. 

As  he  approaches  the  entrance  gates  of  the  hospital, 
his  eyes  rest  with  a  whimsical  twinkle  on  the  colossal  statues 
which  then  sprawled  over  them.  Quite  original  is  the 
sprightly  way  in  which  he  compares  the  figures  of  Dementia 
and  Mania  with  the  fate  of  some  of  the  personalities  of 
his  age. 

Possibly  he  had  Swift — disappointed  at  not  receiving 
a  bishopric  for  his  political  services — in  his  mind,  when 
he  wrote  : — 

"  The  melancholy  gentleman  is  employed  by  the  Govern- 
ment, but  can't  get  to  the  summit  of  power,  and  on  that 
account  has  been  many  years  sullen  and  dissatisfied." 

In  the  companion  portrait  we  may  certainly  recognize 
the  features  of  the  Young  Pretender,  whose  cause  had 
been  finally  shattered  some  five  years  earlier  at  Culloden. 

"  The  other  was  fortune's  favourite,  and,  for  attempting 
the  chariot  of  the  Sun,  he  was  hurled  down  like  Phaeton, 
and  ever  since  has  done  nothing  but  rave  and  grin." 

According  to  Miss  Burney,  Smart's  "  physiognomy  was 
of  that  round  and  stubbed  form  that  seemed  appertaining 
to  a  common  dealer  behind  a  common  counter,"  but,  never- 
theless, the  little  poet — his  hat  under  his  arm — is  permitted 
to  "  galant "  a  lady  into  one  of  the  wards.  Bethlem  is — 
believe  me — a  chosen  haunt  of  the  goddess  of  romance, 
and  a  house  of  many  strange  meetings,  and  Smart  has 
no  difficulty  in  finding  materials  for  a  couple  of  pathetic 
tales,  the  second  of  which  concerns  itself  with  the  fate 
of  Will  Wimble,  one  of  the  friends  of  Sir  Roger  de  Coverley. 


270     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

These  entertaining  little  sketches  conclude  with  a  delicious 
touch  of  comedy,  quite  redolent  of  the  humour  of  asylum 
life. 

Many  of  the  patients  were  allowed  to  mix  freely  among 
the  visitors,  and  one  of  them  on  this  occasion  enters  into 
conversation  with  Smart,  professing  to  be  only  a  casual 
visitor   like  himself.     He   is   afraid,    however,   of  the   surly 


LXXXII 

Precious  the  penitential  tear; 
And  precious  is  the  sigh  sincere, 

Acceptable  to  God : 
And  precious  are  the  winning  fiowcjs. 
In  glaasoine  Israel's  feast  of  bower>, 

Bound  on  tlie  hallowed  sod. 


LXXXII  I 

More  precious  that  diviner  part 

Of  David,  e'en  in  the  Lord's  own  heart. 

Great,  beriutiful,  and  new  : 
In  all  things  where  it  \vas  intent. 
In  all  extremes^  in  each  event. 

Proof — answ'ring  true  to  true. 


LXXXIV 

Glorious  the  sun  in  mid  career; 
Glorious  th'  assembled  fires  appear ; 

Glorious  the  comet's  train  : 
Glorious  the  trumpet  and  alarm  ;    » 
Glorious  th'  Almiglviy's  stretch'd-out  arm; 

Glorious  th'  enraptured  main  : 


FROM  THE  "SONG  TO  DAVID. 

keeper  spoiling  his  game,  and,  therefore,  makes  a  pretence 
of  treating  him  as  a  nervous  countryman  to  whom  he  has 
undertaken  to  show  the  sights  of  tjie  town. 

"  He  kept  whispering  encouragingly  to  the  keeper,  held 
him  affectionately  by  the  hand,  and  bade  him  not  be  uneasy, 
as  he  would  protect  him  !  " 

In   the  edition  of  Smart's  work,  to   which  reference  has 


''THE  BETSY  PRIG  SCHOOL  OF  NURSING''     271 

been  made,  the  "  Song  to  David  "  was  excluded  with  some 
other  poems,  as  "  bearing  melancholy  proofs  of  the  recent 
estrangement  of  his  mind."  It  was  left  to  the  nineteenth 
century  to  do  justice  to  the  freshness  of  its  beauties  and 
to  the  majesty  of  its  solemn  organ-notes.  Browning,  for 
example,  who  loved  to  declaim  some  of  its  glowing  passages, 
placed  Christopher  Smart  among  the  immortals  between 
Milton  and  Keats. 

Some  of  the  grandest  of  Smart's  poems  were  intensely 
religious,  and  he  composed  parts  of  them  on  his  knees  in 
the  attitude  of  worship.  And  yet  Kit's  friend's  used  to 
say  that  he  was  most  mad,  when  he  was  most  religious. 
In  his  case  this  was  probably  the  truth ;  indeed  it  is  a 
paradox  with  which  the  alienist  is  familiar.  Dr.  Johnson, 
however,  who  did  not  realize  the  significance  of  a  morbid 
and  maudlin  religiosity,  was  inclined  to  think  that  Smart 
ought  not  to  have  been  shut  up. 

"  His  infirmities  were  not  noxious  to  society.     He  insisted 
on   people    praying  with   him ;    and    I'd   as    lief   pray   with 
Kit   Smart  as  any  one  else.     Another  charge  was  that  he_ 
did  not  love  clean  linen  ;  and   I  have  no  passion  for  it." 


CHAPTER   XXX 

WHEN    GEORGE    THE    THIRD    WAS    KING 

The  last  forty  years  of  the  eighteenth  century,  which  I  shall 
survey  in  this  chapter,  were  among  the  heroic  years,  in  which 
England  marched  over  Holland,  France  and  Spain  to  the 
supremacy  of  Europe.  This  was  the  age  in  which  Rodney 
"broke  the  line"  of  the  French  fleet  in  the  West  Indies,  and 
the  Dutch  were  overwhelmed  at  Camperdown.  But  let  it  never 
be  forgotten  by  the  nation  that  many  of  the  sailors,  who  gave 
England  the  command  of  the  seas,  had  to  seek — as  the  price 
of  their  valour — an  anchorage  in  Bethlehem  Hospital.  It 
was  the  period  in  which  the  mother-land  lost  her  colonies  in 
America  but  built  up  another  empire  in  Hindostan  ;  this  was 
the  reign  in  which  the  virulence  of  political  faction  and  the 
unnatural  misconduct  of  his  graceless  heir  contributed  to 
the  mental  malady  of  George  III.  Conspicuous  amongst  the 
statesmen  and  orators,  who  cut  and  thrust  in  parliament  in 
the  name  of  America,  India  and  the  Regency,  were  Pitt,  Fox 
and  Burke.  With  a  sense  of  surprise  and  shock  my  readers 
will  learn  that  each  of  them  was  once  a  patient  in  Bethlem 
— or  at  least,  should  have  been,  according  to  the  carica- 
tures of  Gillray  and  Rowlandson,  which  illustrate  these 
pages. 

But  other  stars  swim  into  the  field  of  vision,  and  I  turn 
the  telescope  of  the  historian  towards  that  part  of  the  firma- 
ment where  the  literary  luminaries  of  the  eighteenth  century 
still  shine  serene.  Such  were  Dr.  Johnson  and  Horace 
Walpole,  who  visited  the  hospital,  or  wrote  about  it.     Dr. 

Johnson  has  been  waiting  too  long  in  the  ante-room  :  let  him 

272 


WHEN  GEORGE    THE    THIRD    WAS  KING    273 

be  admitted  by  the  groom  of  the  chambers  to  the  presence- 
chamber  without  further  delay. 

On  two  occasions  at  least  did  Dr.  Johnson  inspect  the 
"  mansions  of  Bedlam  "  ;  on  one  of  these  visits  he  came  with 
Murphy,  the  dramatist,   and    Foote,  the   comedian.     Foote, 


'M 


"COOLING   HIS   brains"    (1789). 

Burke  was  thought  to  have  conducted  the  prosecution  of  Warren  Hastings  with  such 
extravagant  vituperation  that  Gillray,  the  caricaturist,  has  consigned  him  to  a  cell  in 
Bethlehem  Hospital.  Here  he  is  represented  as  heavily  fettered  to  the  floor  by  a  double 
chain,  the  hnks  of  which,  in  the  shape  of  letters,  record  the  verdict  of  the  Lords  and  Commons 
on  the  violence  of  his  invective.  The  patient's  head  is  being  shaved,  as  was  usual  in  acute 
cases,  the  barber  being  Major  Scott,  the  parliamentary  agent  of  Hastings.  Burke  is  uttering 
a  stream  of  abuse,  as  he  thinks  of  the  reception  accorded  by  the  king  to  the  monster  who 
had  instigated  the  hanging  of  Nundcomar. 

who  was  a  merciless  mimic,  used  to  give  a  very  diverting 
account  of  Dr.  Johnson's  interview  with  a  Jacobite  patient, 
who  was  banging  his  straw  under  the  delusion  that  he  was 
chastising  the  duke  of  Cumberland  for  his  cruelties  after  the 
battle  of  Culloden.  I  can  quite  imagine  Johnson,  whose 
sympathies  had  been  with  the    Pretender  rather  than  with 

19 


274     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

George  II,  urging  on  the  man  to  redouble  his  blows,  and 
bringing  down  his  own  oak  stick  with  great  gusto  and  many 
a  contortion  on  the  inanimate  victim. 

There  are  traces,  I  think,  of  the  impressions  left  upon 
his  mind  by  his  visits  to  Bethlem  in  many  conversations 
recorded  by  Boswell.  He  had  evidently  studied  living 
models  very  closely,  presumably  in  the  company  of  the  man 
with  the  case-book.  The  result  is  quite  a  philosophic 
pathology  of  insanity.  He  has,  for  example,  in  the  case  of 
Collins,  the  poet,  (i 721-1759),  pointed  out  that  it  was  the 
sensible  approach  of  his  mental  disorder  which  first  drove 
him  to  the  temporary  relief  of  stimulants  :  it  was  not  in  his 
case,  as  in  that  of  Smart,  the  stimulants  which  caused  the 
disease.  He  also  argued  that  the  demoniacs  of  the  Gospel 
fled  to  fire  or  water,  because  physical  pain  served  to  ease 
their  mental  anguish,  but  I  should  be  inclined  to  suggest  that 
they  also  heard  "  voices  "  goading  them  to  suicide. 

It  was  also,  it  is  probable,  in  the  hospital  that  the  author 
of  "  Rasselas  "  encountered  the  crazy  astronomer,  who  figures 
in  that  philosophic  romance.  This  philanthropic  genius  (just 
such  another  was  for  many  years  one  of  my  friends)  was 
under  the  impression  that  he  controlled  the  sun  and  weather. 
Naively,  however,  he  confessed  that  he  found  it  very  difficult 
— in  spite  of  a  conscientious  distribution  of  the  elements — 
to  prevent  grumbling  among  the  recipients  of  his  favours  in 
the  varying  climates  of  the  world. 

Dr.  Johnson,  who  had  inherited  hypochondria  from  his 
father,  used  to  say  that  he  had  been  all  his  life  on  the  border- 
line— sometimes  an  almost  imperceptible  line — which  divides 
sanity  from  insanity. 

"  When  Dr.  Johnson,"  says  Boswell,  "  was  at  Lichfield  in 
the  college  vacation  of  1729,  he  felt  himself  overwhelmed 
with  a  horrible  hypochondria  with  perpetual  irritation,  fret- 
fulness  and  impatience,  and  with  a  dejection,  gloom  and 
despair  which  made  existence  a  misery.  From  that  dismal 
malady  he  was  never  afterwards  perfectly  relieved,  and  all 
his  labours  and  all  his  engagements  were  but  temporary 
interruptions  of  its  baleful  influence." 


WHEN  GEORGE    THE    THIRD    WAS    KING    275 

Here,  then,  is  one  example — and  George  Borrow  is,  per- 
haps, another — of  many  who  have  to  Hve  their  lives  and 
earn  their  bread  under  dark  clouds  that  seldom  show  a  silver 
lining.  To  such  sufferers  Dr.  Johnson  would  say  as  he  said 
to  himself :  "  It  is  madness  to  attempt  to  think  down  dis- 
tressing thoughts  ;  try  and  divert  them."  He  himself  kept 
a  lamp  burning  at  night  by  his  bedside,  and  used  to  read 
a  book,  till  he  had  chased  away  the  phantoms  which 
haunted  him. 

Enter  Horace  Walpole  with  all  the  grace  of  a  Chesterfield, 
the  wit  of  a  Selwyn,  and  a  delightful  frivolity  all  his  own. 
If  he  disapproved  of  a  man  politically,  he  was  fond  of 
dubbing  him  an  "  out-pensioner  of  Bedlam,"  and  he  once 
sarcastically  advised  the  government,  which  he  detested,  to 
secure  a  free  hand  for  its  mischievous  policy  by  shutting 
up  all  the  sane  and  sensible  people  in  Bethlehem  Hospital. 
"Horry" has  much  he  would  like  to  say  about  our  physicians, 
whom  he  knew  personally,  but  I  have  only  time  to  listen  to 
one  of  his  anecdotes. 

"I  am  charmed,"  he  writes  on  29th  October,  1764,  "with 
the  answer  I  have  just  read  in  the  papers  of  a  poor  man 
in  Bedlam,  who  was  ill-used  by  an  apprentice,  because  he 
would  not  tell  him  why  he  was  confined  there.  The  un- 
happy creature  said  at  last :  '  Because  God  has  deprived  me 
of  a  blessing  which  you  never  had.' " 

That  apprentice,  I  dare  wager,  came  from  Bridewell ! 

It  was  in  1780  that  Lord  George  Gordon,  a  crack-brained 
nobleman  whom  Walpole  would  have  sent  to  Bethlem  rather 
than  to  the  Tower,  fomented  an  agitation  for  the  repeal  of 
the  act  which  had  emancipated  the  Roman  Catholics  from 
many  of  their  political  disabilities.  This  agitation  might 
have  maintained  its  constitutional  character,  had  not  the 
supineness  of  the  civil  magistrates  reinforced  the  Protest- 
ant Associations  with  all  the  refuse  and  scum  of  the 
metropolis. 

The  mob  had  already  threatened  to  burn  down  the  prisons 
and  to  release  the  prisoners — a  threat  which  they  success- 
fully carried  out — when  a  rumour  got  into  circulation   that 


276     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

the  rioters  intended  to  burn  down  Bethlehem  Hospital,  and 
to  release  its  desperate  inhabitants. 

"  This  rumour,"  says  Dickens  in  "  Barnaby  Rudge,"  "  sug- 
gested such  dreadful  images  to  the  people's  minds,  and  was 
indeed  an  act  so  fraught  with  new  and  unimaginable  horrors 
in  the  contemplation,  that  it  beset  them  more  than  any  loss 
or  cruelty,  of  which  they  could  foresee  the  worst,  and  drove 
many  sane  people  nearly  mad  themselves." 

At  the  first  whisper  of  such  a  rumour  no  doubt  the  hospital 
was  barricaded,  and  all  the  straw  removed  from  the  barn. 
Not  content  with  these  precautions  the  little  garrison  would 
have  thought  it  politic  to  chalk  the  words  "  No  Popery  "  in 
the  largest  letters  along  the  outer  walls,  and  to  follow  the 
example  of  their  neighbours  by  hanging  out  streamers  of 
blue  ribbon  from  the  windows. 

The  hospital  was  not,  after  all,  attacked  by  the  mob, 
but  two  or  three  scenes  in  the  drama  of  the  Gordon  Riots 
were  actually  played  on  the  fields  within  full  view  of  the 
patients. 

The  rioters  had  evidently  intended  to  destroy  the  Roman 
Catholic  chapel  in  Ropemaker's  Alley,  Moorfields,  on  the 
afternoon  or  evening  of  Sunday,  4th  June,  1780,  but,  accord- 
ing to  the  official  records  of  the  city,  the  incendiaries  finally 
yielded  to  the  appeals  of  the  lord  mayor  and  aldermen  and 
dispersed  for  the  night.  However,  on  the  following  morning 
(Monday,  5th  June),  and  in  "  broad  daylight,"  this  chapel  and 
adjoining  houses,  inhabited  by  Roman  Catholics,  were  pillaged 
and  destroyed.  With  the  woodwork  taken  from  chapel  and 
houses  great  bonfires  were  lit,  and  into  the  flames  were 
thrown  vestments,  images  of  saints,  rich  stuffs,  and  sacred 
pictures  from  the  plundered  chapel. 

Round  and  round  these  fires — without  interference  from 
anybody — the  rioters  danced  and  howled  and  roared,  and 
among  them,  each  with  his  club  and  his  blue  cockade, 
Barnaby  Rudge,  with  Hugh,  Dennis  the  hangman,  and 
Simon  Tappertit. 

The  glare  of  the  writhing  flames  blazed  in  the  glass  of 
the  hospital  windows,  and,  while  some  of  the  patients  danced 


WHEN  GEORGE    THE    THIRD    WAS  KING     277 

in   glee,  others  shrieked  as  if  they  were  already  ascending 
their  own  funeral  pyres. 

Three  years  after  the  Gordon  Riots  the  governors  issued 
an  appeal  for  funds  to  provide  additional  accommodation  for 
incurable  cases.  In  these  years,  when  land  was  the  most 
profitable  of  investments,  they  were  able  out  of  the  estates 
left  by  Barkham  and  others  to  maintain  a  hundred  patients 
of  this  class,  fifty  of  either  sex.  But  there  were,  it  appears, 
generally  as  many  as  two  hundred  applicants  waiting  for  a 
vacancy  on  the  incurable  list.  They  had  already  been  under 
observation  in  the  hospital,  but  their  harassed  friends  could 
only  hope  to  secure  their  admission  some  six  years  after 
their  first  discharge.  In  any  case  money  was  wanted,  for 
the  governors  relied  on  casual  benefactions  to  make  up  the 
annual  deficit,  but  an  ugly  fact,  unknown  to  the  benevolent 
public,  lurked  behind  this  appeal.  Some  six  years  earlier 
Mr.  W.  Kinleside  (treasurer  from  1768  to  1774)  had  been 
adjudged  bankrupt,  and  the  associated  hospitals  had  lost 
nearly  six  thousand  pounds  which  he  had  of  their  money. 
It  was  necessary  to  borrow  in  order  to  meet  the  ordinary 
liabilities,  and  meanwhile  Bethlem  had,  jointly  with  Bride- 
well, to  contribute  a  considerable  sum  annually  to  repay 
capital  and  interest. 

The  appeal  was  written  by  the  Rev.  Thomas  Bowen, 
reader  and  schoolmaster  of  Bridewell  Hospital.  Nothing 
can  be  more  sympathetic  or  forcible  than  the  rounded 
periods  in  which  he  pleads  the  cause  of  those  "who,  so 
far  from  recompensing,  cannot  even  feel  the  least  gratitude 
to  their  benefactors."  But  in  a  moment  of  infatuation  Bowen 
pretended  to  be  a  historian  and  ambitiously  designated  what 
was  no  more  than  a  meritorious  pamphlet  "An  Historical 
Account  of  the  Origin,  Progress,  and  Present  State  of 
Bethlem  Hospital,  founded  by  King  Henry  VIII  for  the 
Cure  of  Lunatics." 

His  little  work  contains  much  valuable  information  as  to 
the  "  Present  State  of  Bethlem,"  but  there  is  no  history 
whatever  in  his  "  Historical  Account  of  the  Origin,"  and 
very  little   in   his    few   allusions   to  the  "  Progress "  of  the 


278     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

hospital.  The  author  had  not  the  faintest  idea  that  Bethlem 
had  been  engaged  in  her  present  work  since  1377  at  least. 
With  ridiculous  complacency,  therefore,  he  contrasts  the 
"  enlarged  spirit  of  Protestant  benevolence  "  with  the  "  con- 
tracted view  of  monkish  hospitality."  I  could  not,  it  is 
true,  have  disinterred  the  buried  monastery  of  St.  Mary  of 
Bethlehem  from  a  grave  three  centuries  deep,  or  reverently 
vindicated  the  memory  of  those  who  devoted  themselves 
from  1247  to  1547  to  the  cause  of  the  poor  and  the  sick, 
had  not  the  records  of  London  and  the  nation  been  made 
accessible  to  students. 

But  Mr.  Bowen  was  a  Fellow  of  St.  John's  College,  Oxford, 
and  he  had  access  to  the  library  of  Sion  College.  A  little 
research,  therefore,  in  Stow,  Dugdale,  and  some  pre- 
Reformation  books  would  have  saved  him  from  ascribing 
the  foundation  of  Bethlehem  Hospital  to  the  "  liberality  of 
Henry  VHI." 

This  performance  of  his,  which  appears  to  have  benefited 
the  funds  very  considerably,  was  printed  and  published  at 
the  expense  of  the  hospital,  and  a  copy  of  it  was  sent  to 
every  governor  of  the  royal  hospitals,  to  every  member  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  to  every  banker,  to  every  editor, 
and  to  every  peer. 

Mr.  Bowen,  who  was  made  a  governor  in  recognition  of 
his  literary  services,  lived  to  read  large  portions  of  the  court 
books,  and,  as  its  chaplain,  to  defend  Bridewell  against  the 
"  corrosive  canker  of  modern  reform,"  which  threatened  to 
deprive  it  of  arts-masters  and  apprentices. 

Eight  years  after  the  publication  of  the  "  Historical 
Account,"  i.e.,  on  20th  August,  1791,  Hannah  Snell,  the 
female  marine,  was  received  into  Bethlehem  Hospital,  where 
she  died  of  senile  decay  at  the  age  of  69  on  8th  February, 
1792.  She  is  described  in  our  Admission  Book  as  belonging 
to  the  parish  of  St.  Leonard's,  Bromley,  Middlesex,  and  her 
securities  are  entered  as  "  George  Eyles,  Attorney,  of  the 
same  parish,  and  John  Day,  of  the  Excise  Office,  Broad 
Street."  Hannah  married  as  the  second  of  her  three  hus- 
bands one  Samuel   Eyles,  a  carpenter,  of  Newbury,  and  I 


These  two  figures  may,  perhaps,  represent  the  apothecary  and  a  keeper  of  Bethlehem 
Hospital.  The  apothecary,  who  would  be  John  Gozna,  is  about  to  administer  a 
confection,  and  the  keeper  is  carrying  strait  jackets  for  some  refractory  patients.  Two 
of  these  are  Pitt  and  the  Duke  of  Richmond,  who,  according  to  Rowlandson,  are 
suffering  from  the  exaltation  of  the  insane.  The  allusion  is  to  the  events  of  1788-9, 
-when  Pitt  sought  to  restrict  the  power  of  the  prince  of  Wales,  in  the  event  of  the 
kmg's  insanity  proving  incurable. 


HANNAH    SXELL. 
After  the  painting  of  Ricliard  Plielps,  ivliicit  7vas  engrai'ed  by  J.  Faber.) 


To  face  p.  278. 


WHEN  GEORGE    THE    THIRD    WAS   KING     279 

imagine  that  George  was  her  son,  who  was  brought  up  under 
a  lady  of  quality. 

The  romantic  incidents  in  the  career  of  the  female  marine 
are  established  beyond  cavil  by  the  archives  of  Chelsea 
Hospital.  In  the  "Admission  Roll"  under  21st  November, 
1750,  is  the  following  entry: — 

"  Regt.  2nd  Marq.,  Frazer's.  Hannah  Snell,  age  27.  Time 
of  service  4J  years  in  this  and  Guise's  Regt.  Wounded  at 
Pondicherry  in  the  thigh  and  both  legs.  Born  at  Worcester, 
her  father  a  dyer." 

Hannah  was  awarded  a  pension  of  fivepence  a  day,  but 
it  is  noted  in  the  "  Chelsea  Hospital  Journal"  (1783-87)  that 


; ^...::_. '^:±^z'z:'.-.rf,±^:Q^,l.ll..^...l-^^ 1-- -.— 

-.  ,      ,       ,  -%  .  V-,  ' 

yy^..  ^f^  - —   V    ^::^^.^^^^_^  {^-.-.^y^-  ■  ^^ ^■■■--<-^^^-^ 

^    *--.■,  i  m^.%>)ijs!ixi  i?v-  i-— "    .  ^-  ''-   ■  -  ■  -':•■  •^" ' ' 

THE   ENTRY   IN   THE   BETHLEM   ADMISSION   BOOK. 

it  was  raised  to  a  shilling  a  day,  by  authority  of  the  king's 
letter,  from  9th  June,  1785,  "in  compassion  to  her  infirm 
state  of  health." 

On  her  return  from  India  in  1750,  Hannah,  who  had 
resumed  petticoats,  was  engaged  to  appear  at  the  Royalty 
Theatre,  Wellclose  Square,  E.,  and  at  Sadler's  Wells.  In 
these  houses  she  entertained  her  audiences  with  what  to-day 
would  be  termed  a  music-hall  performance,  going  through 
various  military  exercises  and  singing  several  topical  songs 
in  her  marine's  uniform.  From  the  stage  she  drifted  into 
a  public-house  at  Wapping,  to  which  she  endeavoured  to 
attract  custom  by  giving  it  the  sign  of  the  "  Widow  in 
Masquerade." 


N 


280     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

I    have   reproduced    the    title-page   of  a    bombastic    little 
book  of  1750,  in   which  a  clever  but  unscrupulous  man   of 


II 


vl 


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%%  1 


y    J 


L I F  E  <-^?/fi'  A  D  V  E  N  T  U  R  E  S 


HANj\  AH 


Jl 

Who  too^v  Hjioti  ncr/elf  the  't^.^w^c  o{ 

J.'me^  Gr.^y  ,  an  \  ^  cj;  dc/  it  A  Ly  htr  >>uita.iJ, 
p<^t  on  iVier'  jpsn-^  arJ  !ruv\'j>-'  r>s  Zoientry 
hi  qiieit  of  him,  v'^*-  ^  i'^i,  {^1  fti  '  ^^  v-jI  C:'//*''-'^ 
Kegiment  of  Foot,  ^n.^  xi  u.  ^'  u  i  r  at  F^-gi- 
nvcuv  10  Carbjh^  5-5  tn    "^^        ''u   li       .  .>     iw-a  5 1 


A  Fell  a,.'^  Tr  je  ^\o'     . 

V/,th  rhe  m<*ny  Vn  ,  of  ^ 

4  "«.'./■/,    >vh  je  ui'"  rev  \v    1  """ 
huit  ./'her  PO"h 


\f     f,    n 


''  "1 


a   I  p  ' 


Ci.urij  ta  the  / 


"V^ 


letters  has  overlaid  the  real  facts  of  her  adventures  with 
ridiculous  or  sensational  incidents,  spicing  his  confectionery 
with  reflections  unctuously  moral.     The  austere  virtue  of  the 


WHEN  GEORGE    THE    THIRD    WAS   KING     281 

woman  carries  her  unscathed  through  the  most  compromising 
situations ;  her  chivalrous  devotion  to  her  own  sex  subjects 
her  to  the  ill-will  of  her  rough  comrades,  but  with  practised 
hand  the  novelist  always  contrives  a  hairbreadth  escape  for 
his  heroine. 

The  politics  of  the  publisher  may  be  judged  by  the 
splendid  relief  in  which  her  devotion  to  her  king  and  country 
appears  by  the  side  of  the  mean  and  unpatriotic  conduct  of 
the  opposition.  But  the  commercial  side  of  his  character 
may  be  read  at  a  glance  in  a  paragraph,  which  I  extract  from 
the  affidavit,  sworn  before  the  lord  mayor,  with  which  the 
book  was  prefaced  : — 

"  And  this  deponent  lastly  saith  that  she  has  not  given 
the  least  hint  of  her  surprising  adventure  to  any  person  to  be 
printed,  save  and  except  to  the  above-mentioned  Robert 
Walker." 

Robert  Walker  !  "  Walker,  London  !  "  What  havoc  you 
would  have  made  among  your  competitors  in  these  days  of 
American  journalism  with  your  "  scoops "  and  "  exclusive 
news  "  ! 

Three  French  tourists  visited  the  hospital  during  the 
latter  half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  have  left  us  much 
cleaner  and  brighter  pictures  of  the  daily  life  of  its  wards 
than  some  of  their  English  contemporaries. 

In  1765  Monsieur  Grosley  found  quite  a  gay  little 
party  in  progress,  and  was  invited  to  take  a  dish  of  tea 
with  them  : — 

"  The  president  of  the  assembly  was  the  daughter  of  a 
French  refugee,  and  with  great  good  humour  gave  me  the 
history  of  her  companions  :  their  malady  was  occasioned 
either  by  love  or  religious  enthusiasm.  I  took  the  liberty  to 
inquire  the  cause  of  her  own  trouble.  She,  thereupon,  told 
me  a  long  story,  by  which  I  could  discover  nothing  but  a 
great  affection  for  France.  Before  I  entered  the  hall  I 
inquired  whether  I  could  be  there  with  safety,  and  was  assured 
that  I  could.  This  was  the  gayest  and  most  noisy  of  all  the 
coteries  I  had  seen  in  London." 

Another    Frenchman    (Lacombe)   came   away    from    the 


\ 

282     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

ward  in  1784  with  the  conviction  that  the  EngHsh  tempera- 
ment would  cease  to  be  "  gloomy,  melancholy  and  taciturn," 
if  only  wine  were  once  more  the  cheap  drink  of  the  people, 
as  in  the  Middle  Ages.  Plant  vines  (he  urges)  and  encourage 
dancing  on  Sundays,  and  you  will  make  the  nation  gay, 
sociable  and  happy — and  empty  Bethlem  ! 

But  a  more  thoughtful  account  is  that  written  in  the 
sunny  autumn  of  1788  by  the  author  of  "  De  Londres  et  de 
ses  environs."  I  have  already  drawn  upon  some  of  its  philo- 
sophic reflections,  but,  in  view  of  the  storm  which  was  to 
break  in  the  next  century  over  Bethlem,    I    cannot  refrain 

It  -/  •  >t 

']'--/{/(/.'(/'   -  //v  ti,i^/ ///^-y-i- 


/ 


A  TICKET   OF   ADMISSION    (1794). 

from    inserting  the    author's    tribute    to    the    superiority  of 
Bethlem  over  the  asylums  in  Paris  : — 

"  I  stayed  for  some  time  in  Bedlam.  The  poor  creatures 
there  are  not  chained  up  in  dark  cellars,  stretched  on  damp 
ground,  nor  reclining  on  cold  paving  stones,  when  a  moment 
of  reason  succeeds  to  delirium.  When  they  seem  to  be 
awakening  from  a  long  dream,  there  is  nothing  to  recall 
their  pitiable  condition — no  bolts,  no  bars.  The  doors  are 
open,  their  rooms  wainscoted,  and  long  airy  corridors  give 
them  a  chance  of  exercise.  A  cleanliness,  hardly  conceivable 
unless  seen,  reigns  in  this  hospital.    Five  or  six  men  maintain 


WHEN  GEORGE    THE    THIRD    WAS   KING     283 

this  cleanliness,  assisted  by  the  patients  themselves,  when 
they  begin  to  come  to  themselves,  who  are  rewarded  by  small 
presents." 

All  the  evidence  of  the  court  books  and  of  Mr.  Bowen's 
"  Account  "  tends  to  confirm  the  favourable  testimony  of  this 
foreign  traveller. 

In  1769  a  resident  medical  officer  (the  "apothecary")  had 
been  appointed,  and  he,  with  Dr.  John  Monro,  introduced, 
or  inspired,  reforms  which  gave  the  patients  more  tran- 
quillity, privacy,  and  medical  attention.  The  holiday  crowds 
were  banished,  measures  were  taken  to  keep  the  neighbour- 
hood of  the  bedrooms  free  from  a  noisy  watchhouse,  and  the 
keepers  were  instructed  to  examine  the  feet  of  patients  who 
were  lying  on  straw  in  chains,  night  and  morning.  In  such 
cases  the  feet  were  apt  to  mortify,  unless  regularly  chafed 
or  covered  with  flannel.  In  the  past  scurvy  and  dysentery 
had  clung  persistently  to  the  hospital,  but  about  1780  the 
committee  allowed  their  patients  vegetables  and  better  beer, 
with  most  salutary  results.  In  another  direction — probably 
the  growth  of  St.  Luke's  stimulated  progress — an  advance 
was  ordered,  and  the  charges  lowered  to  the  friends  of 
patients,  the  officials  being  encouraged  by  a  rise  in  their 
salary  to  forego  their  perquisites. 

A  concluding  extract  from  "  De  Londres  "  will  give  me  an 
opportunity  of  alluding  to  the  nervous  breakdown  of  the 
great  Lord  Chatham,  of  which  the  author,  presumably,  had 
never  heard. 

"1  saw  among  the  patients  great  men,  scholars  and  philoso- 
phers, and  shuddered  to  think  that  the  fall  of  a  slate,  an 
accidental  stumble,  or  a  bullet  fired  by  a  child  might  bring 
to  Bedlam  a  Lord  Chatham,  a  Locke,  or  even  a  Newton." 

Chatham  suffered  from  periodical  attacks  of  the  gout,  but 
the  strong  medicines  administered  to  him  at  the  end  of 
1766  to  disperse  the  disease  caused  it  to  settle  upon  his 
nerves.  For  two  years  (1767  to  1768)  the  sound  of  a 
child's  voice  or  a  casual  allusion  to  a  debate  in  parlia- 
ment "  produced  an  irritation  in  his  mind  amounting 
almost  to  a  frenzy." 


284     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 


<   / 


^ 


'A   PEEP   INTO   BETHLEHEM. 

The  figure  on  the  left  is  "Peter  Pindar"  (John  Wolcott),  the  satirist,  who  set 
himself  to  ridicule  the  private  life  of  George  III  in  the  books  on  the  floor — the 
"Lousiad"  and  "Ode  upon  Ode."  On  the  right  is  Burke,  whom  his  enemies 
assailed  as  "little  better  than  a  briUant  madman."  He  is  trampling  on  two  books, 
of  which  the  notorious  Tom  Paine  was  the  author — "Common  Sense"  (1774)  and 
the  "  Rights  of  Man"  (1792).  This  caricature  must  have  been  published  between 
1792  and  1794,  when  Burke  was  launching  passionate  invectives  against  the 
French  Revolution.  In  the  background  of  the  picture  is  "  Peggy  of  Bedlam," 
with  wreaths  of  straw,  one  for  the  Grub  Street  versifier  and  the  other  for 
the  excited  rhapsodist.  In  all  these  cartoons  Burke  is  represented  with  a 
rosary  and  crucifix  round  his  neck,  his  enemies  falsely  asserting  that  he  was 
a  Roman  Catholic  like  his  mother. 

{Rowlandson.) 


Whately  has  left  us  a  description  of  Chatham's  melan- 
cholia or  neurasthenia  in  a  letter  which  he  wrote  to  Lord 
Lyttelton  in  July,   1767  : — 

"  He  sits  all  day  leaning  on  his  hands,  which  he  supports 


WHEN  GEORGE    THE    THIRD    WAS  KING     285 

on  the  table :  does  not  permit  any  person  to  come  into  the 
room  :  knocks  when  he  wants  anything  ;  and  having  made 
his  wants  known,  gives  a  signal  without  speaking  to  the 
person  who  answered  his  call." 

Chatham  was  the  statesman  who  gave  Canada  to  England, 
and  might  have  kept  the  United  States  in  the  Empire,  but 
you  may  still  see  in  Pitt  House,  Hampstead,  two  rooms  on 
the  top  storey,  where  he  locked  himself  away  from  human- 
kind. Through  the  windows  stretched  a  heath  fair  with 
birch  and  bracken,  but  Chatham  surveyed  its  beauty  with 
horror  and  despair. 


CHAPTER   XXXI 
ST.     GEORGE'S    FIELDS 

In  the  first  fifteen  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  patients 
and  staff  still  clung,  though  walls  gaped  and  floors  undulated, 
to  that  hospital  in  Moorfields,  where  Swift  and  Cowper,  if  not 
Collins,  the  poet,  and  the  great  duke  of  Marlborough,  had 
gazed,  albeit  unconsciously,  upon  the  shadow  of  their  ap- 
proaching doom.  The  author  of  "  London  Scenes  and 
London  People "  ("  Aleph,"  i.e.,  W.  Harvey)  has  shown  us 
how  in  these  years  houses  and  shops  began  to  crowd  in  upon 
the  moribund  edifice,  depriving  it  of  the  fresh  air  and  sun- 
light, indispensable  to  the  proper  treatment  of  hypochron- 
driacal  maladies. 

Very  little  was  now  left  of  the  open  fields.  On  the  west 
of  the  hospital  was  Finsbury  Pavement,  and  on  the  north 
and  east  of  it  were  lines  of  sheds,  occupied  by  the  dealers 
in  second-hand  furniture.  Here  were  cracked  mirrors  in 
dingy  frames,  four-post  bedsteads  in  the  last  stages  of  decay, 
and  cupboards  with  one  shelf  left  out  of  three.  Up  and 
down  in  this  colonnade  of  canvas-covered  booths  swarthy 
men  and  women  of  Israel  paraded,  seeking  to  inveigle 
passers-by  into  acquiring  some  odds  and  ends  of  frowsy 
upholstery. 

After  running  the  gauntlet  of  these  importunate  traders 
of  "Brokers'  Row"  (Blomfield  Street  represents  the  eastern 
side  of  it  to-day),  you  emerged  into  the  light  of  day — in 
sight  of  the  dusty  windows  and  lurching  wing  of  our  second 
hospital.      The    oldest  part  of  the  building  had   only  been 

standing  one  hundred  and  twenty-five  years,  when  in  1800 

286 


ST.   GEORGE'S  FIELDS  287 

our  surveyor  (James  Lewis,  the  architect)  presented  to  the 
governors  his  report  on  the  dangerous  insecurity  of  the  whole 
structure.  According  to  his  alarming  statements,  which  were 
endorsed  by  Robert  Mylne  and  other  authorities,  there  was 
not  one  floor  which  was  level,  and  not  one  wall  which  was 
upright :  settlements  and  fissures  were  visible  everywhere. 
The  imminent  subsidence  of  the  beautiful  French  palace, 
which  the  genius  of  Robert  Hooke  had  designed,  was 
attributed  to  several  causes.  The  foundations,  which  rested 
on  the  yielding  soil  of  the  city  moat,  as  well  as  on  the 
Roman  wall,  had  not  been  laid  on  piles  :  the  walls,  stagger- 
ing under  a  heavy  roof,  had  not  been  tied  together  through- 
out the  whole  of  the  buildings  as  should  have  been  done ;  the 
brick  piers  in  the  basement,  which  carried  much  of  the  super- 
structure, had  been  cut  away,  or  tampered  with,  for  purposes 
of  storage.  The  surveyor,  therefore,  recommended  that  the 
hospital  should  be  re-built  elsewhere,  as  it  could  only  be  kept 
standing  at  a  cost  of  some  hundreds  of  pounds  annually. 

This  recommendation  certainly  sounded  like  a  signal  for 
instant  retreat,  but,  for  reasons  which  will  be  set  forth  in 
their  place,  it  was  actually  twelve  years  from  the  date  of  the 
report  before  the  foundation-stone  of  the  present  hospital  was 
laid.  As  we  have  so  many  years  still  to  wait,  you  will  not, 
I  am  sure,  begrudge  me  a  few  minutes  while  I  tell  an  affect- 
ing story  associated  with  one  of  the  windows  of  the  old 
house  in  Moorfields. 

The  Rev.  John  Newton,  the  rector  of  St.  Mary  Wool- 
noth,  was  one  of  the  leaders  in  the  Church  of  England  of 
the  Evangelical  Revival  of  the  eighteenth  century.  The 
eloquent  epitaph,  which  may  still  be  read  in  the  vestibule  of 
his  church,  unfolds  in  measured  sentences  the  romance  of  his 
extraordinary  career.  He  was  the  "  slave  trader  and  the 
blasphemer"  whom  the  terrible  experiences  of  a  shipwreck 
converted  into  the  champion  of  "  the  faith  he  had  once 
laboured  to  destroy."  In  the  year  in  which  the  surveyor's 
report  was  received  by  the  court,  Newton  was  very  old 
and  nearly  blind.  His  niece,  Elizabeth  Catlett,  managed 
his   house,  and    acted    as  his  secretary  and    district  visitor. 


288     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

During  the  spring  of  the  following  year  (1801)  she  had  fallen 
into  that  slough  of  despond  which  Bunyan  has  painted  from 
his  personal  experience  of  it,  and  her  burden  of  imaginary 
sins  had  dragged  her  down  into  the  treacherous  quagmire  of 
religious  melancholia.  She  was  now  convinced  that  all  her 
religious  professions  had  been  nothing  but  sheer  hypocrisy, 
and  that  she  had  for  ever  forfeited  the  mercy  of  God.  She 
was  admitted  (I  find  by  referring  to  the  Register  of  Admis- 
sions) into  Bethlehem  Hospital  as  a  free  patient  on 
1st  August,  1 80 1.  It  was  about  this  time  that  Newton 
committed  these  pathetic  reflections  to  his  diary  : — 

"  Thou  hast  tried  me,  as  Thou  didst  try  Abraham  in  his 
old  age,  when  my  eyes  are  failing  away  and  my  strength 
declines.  Thou  hast  called  for  my  Isaac,  who  had  so  long 
been  my  chief  stay  and  staff,  but  it  was  Thy  blessing  which 
makes  her  so.  I  am  to  say  from  my  heart,  '  not  my  will  but 
Thine  be  done.' " 

Miss  Catlett  remained  with  us  for  nearly  a  year,  and 
through  all  these  dreary  months  of  suspense  it  was  the  custom 
of  the  heart-broken  old  man  to  walk  with  a  companion  at  a 
certain  hour  beneath  the  windows  of  the  female  wards  on  the 
western  front.  Pointing  to  a  particular  window,  he  would  say 
to  his  guide : — "  Do  you  see  a  white  handkerchief  being 
waved  to  and  fro  ?  " 

This  was   the   preconcerted    signal,  and,  as   often    as   his 
niece  felt  well  enough  to  wave  a  silent  message  of   love  or 
hope,  the   saintly    Newton    went   back    to    No.    6,  Coleman 
Street  Buildings,  with  fervent  thanksgiving  in  his  heart  and , 
on  his  quivering  lips. 

I  am  glad  to  be  able  to  add  that  the  story  had  the  ending 
it  deserved,  for  Elizabeth  Catlett  went  home  in  due  course, 
and  afterwards  made  a  happy  marriage.  I  see  by  our  books 
that  she  was  sent  out  on  a  month's  trial  on  26th  June,  and 
her  name  was  finally  removed  from  our  registers  24th  July, 
1802. 

How  often  has  the  name  of  Elizabeth  Catlett  recurred  to 
my  mind  on  visiting  days,  as  I  have  stood  watching  relatives 
and  friends   reluctantly  drifting  towards  the  open  gate  and 


"a  study  in  bethlem  hospital. 

The  original  of  this  etching  appears  in  "  Etchings  of  remarkable  beggars,  itinerant  traders,  and 
other  persons  of  notoriety  in  London  and  its  environs"  (1815). 

(The  artist  ii>as  J.  T.  Siiiitli,  the  keeper  of  prints  at  tlie  Britisli  Miiseiini.) 


To  face  p.  288. 


ST.   GEORGE'S  FIELDS  289 

freedom  !  How  often  have  I  observed  some  visitor  turning 
back  with  a  tear  to  wave  a  loving  farewell  ;  and  in  response  a 
handkerchief  fluttered  for  a  moment  behind  the  narrow 
window   panes  ! 

Take  courage,  dear  hearts  !  Elizabeth  Catlett  became  her 
bright,  useful  self  again,  and  many  dark  clouds,  if  not  all,  will 
yet  reveal  a  silver  lining. 

One  wing  of  the  hospital  is  already  in  ruins,  and  even 
"  Mad  Joe "  knows  that  his  old  friends  will  soon  have  to 
find  another  shell.  "  Mad  Joe  " — now  on  the  right  side  of 
the  gate — has  small  bells  attached  to  his  head,  his  wrists, 
his  knees  and  toes,  and  contrives  to  ring  the  changes  not 
unmelodiously.  His  pitch  is  just  outside  the  wall  of 
Bedlam,  and  here  he  is  the  publisher  of  his  own  poems, 
as  often  as  his  chimes  have  attracted  a  market.  But  now 
these  chimes  seem  to  die  away  in  a  parting  knell  over 
his  old  home  ! 

In  the  selection  of  a  suitable  site  for  a  new  asylum  the 
governors  were,  no  doubt,  confronted  with  a  succession  of 
unexpected  difficulties.  They  refused,  however,  to  be  hustled 
into  anything  like  undignified  haste.  Indeed,  it  is  not  hyper- 
critical to  say  that  only  one  event  marks  each  year,  and  that 
only  one  step  forward  was  adventured  annually,  in  the  course 
of  negotiations  which  extended  from  1800  into  1809.  At  the 
close  of  1 801,  for  example,  the  court,  after  spending  a  year  or 
more  on  the  surveyor's  report,  came  to  the  resolution  to 
remove  the  hospital  to  another  neighbourhood,  and  agreed  to 
confer  with  the  city  corporation  as  to  a  new  site.  Two  years 
later  the  Drapers'  Company  offered  the  governors  nearly  seven 
acres  of  land  on  the  breezy  heights  of  Islington — "in  the 
Back  Road  [Liverpool  Road]  near  the  workhouse."  From 
this  point  committees  and  courts  seem  to  have  spent  a  couple 
of  years  or  so  in  discussing  whether  it  might  not  be  possible 
after  all  to  patch  up  the  old  buildings  for  another  four  or  five 
years,  and  whether  or  not  any  more  patients  ought  to  be 
admitted.  The  surveyor  and  other  experts  continued  to 
report  on  the  danger  of  the  delay,  and  at  last  the  governors, 
taking  their  courage  boldly  in  their  hands,  appointed  a  new 

20 


290     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

Building  Committee.  In  a  spasm  of  energy,  on  ist  August, 
1805,  this  committee  instructed  Mr.  Lewis  to  prepare  plans 
for  a  new  building,  while  the  court  ordered  that  appeals  for 
donations  should  be  placed  before  the  charitable  in  the 
advertisement  columns  of  the  daily  press. 

Application  was  also  made  to  parliament  for  a  grant,  on 
the  ground  that  the  governors  were  willing  to  make  permanent 
provision  for  a  considerable  number  of  soldiers  and  sailors 
— the  mental  wreckage  of  the  French  wars — in  their  new 
buildings.  In  response  to  this  petition  the  House  of 
Commons  in  1806  appropriated  ^10,000  in  aid  of  the  funds 
being  raised,  but  success  in  this  direction  was  counter- 
balanced by  some  unforeseen  difficulties  which  now  arose 
about  the  purchase  of  the  site  selected  at  Islington.  For  it 
was  discovered,  while  the  bill  was  in  the  House  of  Lords, 
that  the  ground  was  trust  property  and  could  not  be  sold 
unless  the  purchase  money  was  re-invested  in  land.  The 
Drapers'  Company  were  unwilling  to  take  this  course,  and 
the  committee  in  vain  explored  Ball's  Pond,  Clerkenwell,  and 
the  district  at  the  back  of  the  Foundling  Hospital  for  some- 
thing suitable  to  their  purse  and  needs.  At  last,  in  1807, 
these  footsore  and  harassed  pilgrims,  like  the  founders  of 
some  mediaeval  monastery,  halted  in  sight  of  the  healing 
waters  of  St.  George's  Spa,  and  felt  that  this  was  the  new  site 
destined  by  Providence  for  their  ancient  institution.  A 
memorial  presented  to  the  city,  the  owners  of  the  land,  for  a 
portion  of  it,  was  favourably  received,  when  another  hitch 
occurred.     The  spiteful  fairy  was  at  work  again  ! 

It  had  been  an  essential  part  of  the  scheme  of  the 
governors  to  retain  the  ground  on  which  their  hospital  stood 
and  to  make  it  a  source  of  increasing  revenue  by  letting  it 
out  on  building  leases.  They  had  been  able  to  deal  in  this 
way  with  the  site  of  the  first  hospital  in  Bishopsgate.  But 
the  case  of  the  Moorfields  land  was  not  on  all  fours  with  the 
Bishopsgate  property.  The  Moorfields  estate  was  in  reality 
the  property  of  the  city,  and  it  had  only  been  leased  to  the 
hospital  on  certain  conditions.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
ground  on  which  the  first  hospital  had  been  built,  was  the 


ST.    GEORGE'S  FIELDS  291 

property  of  the  hospital,  and  was  not  held  on  lease. 
Originally  it  had  been  the  free  gift  of  a  citizen  of  London  to 
a  foreign  priory,  but  the  kings,  who  successively  seized  the 
hospital,  confirmed  it  in  the  enjoyment  of  its  Bishopsgate 
and  other  estates. 

The  governors,  indeed,  held  a  lease  of  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  years,  which  was  to  run  from  Michaelmas,  1674, 
but  the  lease  contained  a  provision  of  re-entry,  in  case 
the  land  was  employed  otherwise  than  for  the  accommodation 
of  Bethlehem  Hospital.  It  would  be  impossible  to  remove 
the  hospital,  and  at  the  same  time  to  retain  its  former 
site  for  purposes  of  revenue.  A  way  out  of  this  dilemma 
fortunately  presented  itself.  It  was  suggested  that  the 
corporation  might — with  the  sanction  of  parliament — ex- 
change a  certain  amount  of  the  land  which  belonged  to  them 
in  St.  George's  Fields  for  the  whole  of  the  ground  in  Moor- 
fields  which  had  been  leased  to  the  hospital  in  1674.  In  this 
case  the  unexpired  term  of  the  old  lease  might  be  transferred 
to  a  new  lease. 

Again  the  gallant  vessel,  which  had  weathered  so  many 
storms,  prepared  to  set  sail  from  her  old  moorings.  But  the 
wind  veered,  and  the  destination  of  the  crew  and  cargo 
became  once  more  a  matter  of  uncertainty,  while  the  owners 
of  the  vessel  and  the  authorities  of  the  port  sat  down  to 
haggle  over  the  terms  of  exchange.  No  doubt  it  was  difficult 
from  a  business  point  of  view  to  arrive  at  an  exact  valuation, 
for  the  Moorfields  site  was  ripe  for  building  developments, 
and  was,  therefore,  infinitely  more  valuable  than  land  in 
St.  George's  Fields. 

Two  whole  years  (1807- 1809)  were  frittered  away  in  valua- 
tions, proposals,  and  even  recriminations,  but  at  length 
charity — or  common  sense — prevailed,  and  it  was  agreed  that 
a  simple  exchange  of  sites  should  take  place  without  any 
payment  of  money  entering  into  the  transaction.  On  this 
understanding  it  was  agreed  by  both  parties  that  the  hospital 
should  receive  rather  more  than  eleven  acres  of  land  in  St. 
George's  Fields  in  exchange  for  a  plot  of  some  two  and  a 
half  acres  in  Moorfields,     Eight  of  these  eleven  acres  were 


292     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

to  form  the  site  of  the  hospital,  its  exercise  grounds,  gardens, 
and  necessary  offices,  the  remaining  three  being  placed  at 
the  disposal  of  the  governing  body  to  make  what  profit  they 
could  out  of  them  by  letting  them  on  building  leases. 

The  preliminary  agreement  between  the  city  and  the 
hospital,  having  been  ratified  by  parliament  on  15th  June, 
1810,  the  corporation  on  the  nth  July,  1810,  formally 
demised  to  Sir  Richard  Carr  Glyn,  the  president,  and 
Richard  Clark,  the  treasurer,  as  trustees,  the  greater  part 
of  the  land  covered  to-day  by  Bethlehem  Hospital  and 
King  Edward's  School  (Girls)  and  their  gardens  on  a  lease 
of  eight  hundred  and  sixty-five  years  from  Michaelmas, 
1809. 

I  have  repeated  the  language  of  the  new  lease  which 
describes  the  unexpired  term  of  the  original  lease  as  consist- 
ing of  eight  hundred  and  sixty-five  years  at  Michaelmas, 
1809.  But  it  should  be  noted  that  the  lease  is  inaccurate  in 
this  detail,  and  that  the  correct  figures  should  be  eight 
hundred  and  sixty-four  years,  for  the  date  of  the  original 
lease  was  Michaelmas,  1674,  ^^^  the  new  lease  was  intended 
to  run  from  Michaelmas,  1809.  ^^  ^  subsidiary  lease  of 
1793,  with  which  we  are  no  longer  concerned,  the  term 
of  unexpired  years  is  stated  correctly,  but  in  the  lease 
of  1839,  to  which  reference  is  made  below,  the  term  of 
unexpired  years  should  have  appeared  as  eight  hundred 
and  thirty-five  years  instead  of  eight  hundred  and  thirty- 
six  years.  In  other  words,  the  corporation  have  uncon- 
sciously made  us  a  present  of  a  year  ! 

It  will  prevent  confusion  hereafter  if  I  explain  that  the 
land  leased  to  us  in  18 10  did  not  extend  beyond  the  northern 
and  outermost  walls  of  the  front  airing  courts.  Approxi- 
mately the  avenue  which  runs  from  the  steward's  house  on 
the  east  through  the  front  gardens  to  the  carpenter's  shop 
on  the  west  indicates  the  northern  frontier  of  the  hospital 
territory  until  1839.  This  avenue,  let  me  add,  was  part  of 
the  Newington  to  Lambeth  road  which  then  followed  the 
line  of  these  walls  into  the  Kennington  and  Lambeth 
roads. 


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294     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

The  rest  of  the  front  garden  and  a  narrow  strip  of  land  in 
King  Edward's  School  grounds  (something  over  two  acres) 
were  leased  to  the  hospital  in  1839.  The  governors  had  been 
alarmed  by  a  proposal  of  the  ministry  to  plant  a  new  Fleet 
Prison  in  front  of  the  hospital  windows  and  probably  hurried  to 
secure  the  vacant  ground.  In  that  year  an  act  of  parliament 
was  passed  which  enabled  the  city  to  grant  to  the  hospital 
on  1 2th  December,  1839,  a  lease  of  this  land  for  a  term 
of  eight  hundred  and  thirty-six  years,  from  Michaelmas, 
1838,  so  that  both  leases  might  run  concurrently  till  the  full 
term  of  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  years  had  expired. 
It  was  a  condition  of  this  indenture  that  the  land  thus  leased, 
which  had  been  laid  out  in  1837,  when  the  lodge  was  also 
built,  should  be  maintained  as  an  ornamental  garden,  and 
that  no  buildings  other  than  a  lodge  should  be  erected  upon 
it.  To  enclose  this  additional  space  it  was,  of  course, 
necessary  to  divert  the  Newington  to  Lambeth  Road. 
The  diversion  appears  to  have  been  begun  in  May,  1838, 
or  possibly  somewhat  earlier,  under  the  provisions  of  an 
act  of  1823.  The  Surrey  and  Sussex  Turnpike  Trust 
received  ;^300  out  of  our  revenues  for  the  expenses  incurred 
in  carrying  the  road  along  its  present  course.  On  the  other 
hand  the  triangle  of  land  which  carries  Barkham  Terrace, 
Laurie  Terrace,  and  Price  Terrace,  was  not  taken  on  lease, 
but  bought  outright  by  the  governing  body,  the  date  of  the 
conveyance  being  2nd  April,  1840.  In  this  case  also  their 
policy  was  dictated  by  an  attempt  of  the  Receiver  of  Police 
to  buy  the  land  for  a  police  station. 

Many  memories  haunt  the  fields  which  take  their  name 
from  the  church  of  St.  George  the  Martyr,  Southwark. 
Hard  by  the  causeway  which  the  Romans  carried  from 
London  Bridge  across  the  marshes  through  Newington, 
their  legions,  maybe,  pitched  their  summer  camp  amid 
the  water  violets.  Where  the  great  highways  between 
London  or  Westminster  and  the  Continent  converged — 
whether  at  St.  George's  Circus  or  elsewhere — king  and 
priest,  warrior  and  statesman,  were  received  in  state  on  their 
arrival  from  Dover.     Aye,  and  what  crowds  have  mustered 


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296     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

in  St.  George's  Fields,  in  the  panoply  of  war  or  passion,  from 
the  year  when  Canute  was  digging  his  famous  canal  at 
the  back  of  the  present  hospital  in  Brook  Street  to  the 
day  when  the  Chartists  passed  Bethlem  on  their  way 
to  Westminster !  If  clattering  tram  and  whizzing  motor- 
bus  have  not  driven  all  the  ghosts  away,  mediaeval  archers 
should  be  wandering  discqnsolately  about  Newington  Butts, 
and  the  "  No  Popery "  henchmen  of  Lord  George  Gordon 
scowling  impotently  at  St.  George's  Roman  Catholic 
cathedral,  in  the  misty  nights  of  autumn. 

But  there  is  a  particular  part  of  St.  George's  Fields — that 
on  which  the  present  Bethlehem  Hospital  stands — which 
possesses  for  us  and  our  descendants  associations  of  a  very 
curious  but  not  always  reputable  character.  In  the  year  1642 
parliament  threw  up  a  fort  to  defend  London  against  her 
king  on  the  site  of  the  hospital :  the  fort  is  localized  as  at  the 
"  Dog  and  Duck."  The  name  of  the  tavern  proclaims  that  it 
was  the  scene  of  a  very  popular  pastime,  in  which  the  sports- 
man matched  the  strength  and  spirit  of  his  dog  against  the 
elusiveness  of  a  terrified  duck. 

There  is  embedded  in  the  front  of  the  outermost  wall  of 
airing-court  M.i^  the  stone  sign  of  the  "Dog  and  Duck" 
tavern.     It  represents  a  squatting  spaniel — said  to  have  been 
the  dog  of  his  day  for  such  sport — gripping  a  duck  by  the 
neck.     It  will  be  seen  by  a  look  at  the  illustration  which 
accompanies  the  text  that  the  sign  consists  of  two  panels, 
and  that  the  left-hand  panel  bears  the  arms  of  the  city  ward 
of  Bridge  without,  which  is  Southwark.     The  date  of  17 16  is 
attached  to  this  panel,  and   I  suggest  that  in  this  year  the 
rustic  tavern  of  my  picture  gave  way  to  the  "  small  public- 
house,"  which  a  grateful  publican  bequeathed  to  his  barmaid, 
one  Mrs.  Hedger.     Possibly  it  was  she  who  advertised  in  the 
public  journals  of  173 1  and  1736  the  virtues  of  waters,  which 
would    disperse  the    most    obstinate   diseases.      But  it  was 
by  all  accounts  her  son  who   gave  the  place   its  period  of 
popularity  and  made  such  a  fortune  out  of  it  personally  that 
he   was  known   as   the   "  King  of  the   Fields."     This  astute 
young  fellow,  who  had  been  a  postboy  at  Epsom,  conceived 


2    ^ 

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Q       S 


X       ~ 


ST,   GEORGE'S  FIELDS 


297 


the  idea  of  creating  a  St.  George's  Spa  after  the  model  of 
Epsom  or  Tunbridge  Wells.  In  1754  he  added  to  the 
original  public-house  a  Long  Room  of  the  sort  found  in 
most  of  the  sixty  pleasure  gardens  of  the  eighteenth  century 
in  and  about  London.  Here  the  company  danced  or  listened 
to  the  organ,  dined  at  the  ordinary,  or  sat  and  drank  tea  or 
cgffee  together.  In  1769  a  bowling-green  and  a  swimming- 
bath  were  added  to  the  out-of-door  attractions  of  the  place, 
and  in  the  well-kept  gardens  by  the  willow-shaded  pond 
there  were  discreet  alcoves  for  customers  of  a  retiring  dis- 


THE  STONE  SIGN  OF  THE  "DOG  AND  DUCK   TAVERN. 


position.  The  "  Dog  and  Duck  "  never,  it  is  certain,  enjoyed 
the  vogue  of  Vauxhall,  but,  at  any  rate,  it  was  well  patronized 
by  the  quality  between  1754  and  1770.  Dr.  Johnson,  for 
instance,  recommended  the  waters  to  Mrs.  Thrale,  and  the 
Spa  was  in  such  favour  with  a  good  class  of  people  that 
Hedger  issued  a  silver  admission  ticket  to  regular  subscribers. 
There  is  a  specimen  of  this  medal  in  the  Banks'  collection  at 
the  British  Museum.  It  is  quite  a  work  of  art,  and  bears 
on  the  obverse  the  head  of  a  famous  French  professor  of 
medicine  in  the  seventeenth  century  (Lazare  Riviere).  It 
must  have  been  in  these  halcyon  days  of  sleek  respectability 


298     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

that  the  proprietor  (or  his  advertisement  manager)  rhapso- 
dized on  the  "  Dog  and  Duck "  as  the  favourite  haunt  of 
modesty  and  virtue.  He  informs  all  fond  mammas  that  the 
boarding  school  has  now  become  obsolete,  since  Miss  can 
be  instructed  in  all  the  accomplishments  and  fashionable 
practices  of  the  world  at  such  a  seminary  as  the  "  Dog  and 
Duck"! 

The  spa,  however,  soon  found  it  impossible  to  live  up  to 
such  an  exalted  ideal.  In  1 771,  or  thereabouts,  a  circus 
pitched  its  tents  near  the  tavern,  which  gained  in  customers, 
but  lost  irremediably  on  the  score  of  their  character.  It  is 
an  indication  of  the  date  of  the  decline  in  the  moral  reputa- 
tion of  the  spa  that  in  1775  Garrick  described  the  "frowsy 
bowers"  of  the  "Dog  and  Duck"  as  peopled  with  "fauns 
half  drunk"  and  "Dryads  breaking  lamps."  The  day  of  all 
pleasure  gardens  was  rather  on  the  wane,  and  ten  years  later 
a  place,  which  is  now  consecrated  to  the  temples  of  mercy 
and  science,  had  degenerated  into  the  haunt  of  the  dissolute 
and  criminal  classes.  I  found  in  the  "  Gardner  Collection  " 
a  ballad  in  thieves'  slang  which  purports  to  give  an  account 
of  the  way  in  which  the  female  sharp  preyed  on  the  male  flat 
"  at  the  duck  rig  and  puppy "  {i.e.^  at  a  lively  frolic  in  the 
"Dog  and  Duck"  gardens).  Another  verse,  perhaps,  refers 
to  the  notorious  Charlotte  Shaftoe,  who  is  said  to  have 
betrayed  seven  of  her  lovers  to  the  gallows. 

THE   DOG  AND  DUCK   RIG 

Each  night  at  the  Duck  rig  and  Puppy 

What  a  swell  by  the  side  of  your  blowing, 
Till  she  meets  with  a  spooney  that's  nutty, 

Then  tips  you  the  turnips,  my  knowing  ! 
Sherries  home  with  a  flat  to  be  stroking, 

Then  tips  you  the  hint  at  the  jig 
She  will  meet  you  with  gallows  good  joking, 

And  boast  of  her  bilking  the  prig. 

How  sweet  is  the  life  of  a  Kitty, 

Who  swaggers  a  summer  or  two, 
To  be  called  by  the  knowing  ones  tippy  ! 

And  oh  !   my  sweet  blowing,  that's  you. 


ST.    GEORGE'S  FIELDS  299 

To  the  scaffold  he'll  go  in  a  rattle, 

(Her  heart  you  might  think  it  would  break), 

Till  he  drops  with  the  rest  of  the  cattle. 
She  laughs,  and  you  see  she's  the  stake. 


At  last  the  "Surrey  College  of  Crime"  with  its  "  Drury 
misses "  becoming  too  notorious,  and  societies  for  the  pre- 
vention of  immorality  too  intrusive,  on  12th  September,  1787, 
the  Surrey  magistrates  refused  to  renew  the  licence  of  the 
Gardens.  The  landlord,  however,  was  a  wealthy  and 
resourceful  man,  and  he  at  once  appealed  to  the  city  as 
possessing  jurisdiction  in  Southwark.  Within  a  week  two 
city  justices  had  crossed  the  Thames  and  vindicated  the 
privileges  of  the  corporation  by  reinstating  Hedger.  Litiga- 
tion, of  course,  followed,  and  in  1792  Lord  Kenyon  decided 
that  the  city  had  no  right  to  over-ride  the  local  magistrates. 
The  "  Dog  and  Duck"  may  be  said  to  have  expired  in  1796, 
when  the  buildings  were  turned  into  a  manufactory  for 
making  bread  out  of  potato  flour.  Part  of  the  site  of  the 
pleasure  gardens,  and,  therefore,  of  Bethlehem  Hospital, 
was  occupied  between  1799  and  181 1  by  the  School  for 
the  Indigent  Blind,  which  afterwards  removed  to  the  south- 
western side  of  St.  George's  Circus.  This  beneficent  institu- 
tion, which  thus  invaded  the  haunts  of  crime  and  immorality, 
was  reinforced  by  quite  an  array  of  philanthropic  and  rescue 
agencies,  the  Magdalen  Hospital  (now  at  Streatham)  being 
situated  near  the  junction  of  Blackfriars  Road  and  St. 
George's  Circus,  and  the  Female  Orphan  Asylum  (now  at 
Beddington)  at  the  junction  of  Hercules  Road  and  West- 
minster Bridge  Road. 

The  medicinal  waters  of  the  "  Dog  and  Duck,"  which  were 
known  as  early  as  1695,  were  analysed  in  1856,  and  certified 
to  contain  many  impurities.  On  the  other  hand,  we  have 
every  reason  to  be  thankful  to  waters  which  defended  us 
in  1832  and  1866  from  the  cholera  which  ravaged 
the  neighbourhood.  One  of  the  physicians  of  George  HI 
may  also  be  cited  in  favour  of  the  virtues  of  our  springs. 
Sir    John    Pringle    says    that    he    cured    a    soldier    by   the 


ST.    GEORGE'S   FIELDS  301 

use  of  two  quarts  of  "  Dog  and  Duck "  water  daily.  A 
French  translator,  not  catching  the  allusion  to  the  tavern 
sign,  gravely  ascribed  the  cure  to  an  excellent  broth 
made  from  the  water  in  which  a  dog  and  duck  had  been 
boiled ! 


CHAPTER   XXXII 

THE    PRESENT    HOSPITAL 

In  the  last  chapter  I  tramped  over  St.  George's  Fields, 
dragging,  so  to  speak,  a  surveyor's  chain  after  nae  to  measure 
off  a  portion  of  the  rather  swampy  ground  as  a  site  for  the 
third  Bethlehem  Hospital.  I  found  on  my  arrival  the  land 
occupied  by  the  pleasure  gardens  and  buildings  of  a  famous 
eighteenth-century  spa  as  well  as  by  a  couple  of  rows  of 
tumbledown  houses,  but  I  left  the  land  cleared  of  all  that 
encumbered  it,  and  ready  for  the  architect  or  contractor. 
Many  structures  have  been  successively  erected  from  1815  to 
the  present  day  on  the  land  thus  surveyed,  and,  if  the  reader 
will  make  a  perambulation  of  the  hospital  estate  in  my  com- 
pany, I  will  point  out  to  him  the  extent  of  the  original 
hospital,  indicating,  as  we  walk  along,  what  has  been  added, 
as  progress  demanded  and  economy  permitted. 

Let  us  start  from  the  present  entrance-gate  in  Lambeth 
Road.  In  181 5  this  road  ran,  as  I  have  already  explained, 
alone  the  line  of  our  northern  and  outermost  walls.  Between 
181 5  and  1838,  therefore,  the  visitor  entered  the  corner 
of  the  airing-court  of  M.  ib,  a  railing  running  midway  across 
the  front  lawn  from  the  eastern  to  the  western  lodge. 
Beyond  the  coal-yard  there  was  on  the  east — as  there  is  still 
— a  laundry,  but  it  was  then  equipped  with  everything  neces- 
sary for  dealing  with  the  washing  of  a  large  institution.  The 
patients  of  the  first  half  of  the  nineteenth  century  were 
largely  of  the  labouring  class,  and  the  females  under  super- 
vision   did  most  of  the  necessary  washing.     Before  passing 

round  to  the  back  of  the  house  let  me  make  it  plain  to  you  that, 

302 


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THE  PRESENT  HOSPITAL  303 

at  the  first,  the  main  range  of  buildings  did  not  extend  east- 
ward or  westward  more  than  two  windows  beyond  the  dining- 
rooms  of  the  wards.  An  arch  inside  the  galleries  and  a 
coat  of  arms  on  the  stone  coping  outside  mark  the  limits 
of  the  main  buildings  up  to  the  year  1838.  The  stately 
portico  admitted  the  curious  visitor  or  the  reluctant  patient 
as  soon  as  the  hospital  was  ready  for  occupation,  but 
the  edifice  was  crowned  with  a  species  of  pumpkin-shaped 
cupola,  on  which  the  government  were  very  anxious  to  erect 
a  semaphore  in  181 2,  when  danger  seemed  to  threaten  from 
France.  The  medical  officers  steadily  resisted  the  proposal. 
With  weird,  waving  arms  a  semaphore  would,  undoubtedly, 
have  called  up  in  many  a  morbid  mind  the  vision  of  a  dread 
unearthly  genie,  mocking  and  flouting  the  victim  in  its 
clutches,  or  spelling  out  to  the  doomed  soul  messages  of 
unutterable  horror  and  woe. 

At  the  back,  that  is,  on  the  south,  of  the  hospital,  there 
were — in  these  years  of  infancy — the  lawns  and  flower- 
gardens,  which  were  appropriated  to  the  "  apartments "  of 
the  "  apothecary-superintendent "  and  to  the  steward,  who 
after  so  many  centuries  was  now  subordinated  to  a  resident 
medical  officer.  The  present  kitchen  and  offices  were  com- 
pleted and  in  use  at  the  beginning  of  the  year  1857,  the 
recreation  hall  and  ante-room  (since  191 1  used  as  a  dining- 
room)  not  appearing  on  the  scene  until  after  1896.  Up 
to  the  year  1857  the  kitchen  of  the  institution  appears  to 
have  occupied  the  whole  or  part  of  the  basement  of  the 
resident  physician's  house. 

On  either  side  of  these  back  lawns  were  rudimentary 
wings  running  southward.  For  motives  of  economy  they 
had  been  carried  in  181 5  no  farther  than  four  windows  from 
the  corner  room  of  the  attendant  in  charge  of  each  gallery. 
After  the  year  1838  these  southern  wings  were  carried 
forward — some  fourteen  windows  farther — to  the  point  where 
they  now  terminate.  In  the  course  of  the  same  scheme 
of  operations  the  two  back  basement  wards — M.  la  and 
F.  la — were  drawn  out  still  farther,  but  without  any  super- 
imposed   storeys.      Sydney   Smirke,  the  surveyor,  proposed 


304     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

in  1838  only  to  extend  the  rudimentary  wings  in  the  shape 
of  two  wards  of  one  storey  high — after  the  pattern  of  the 
extremities  of  M.  la  and  F.  i^,  for  he  urged  that  wings  of 
four  storeys  high  would  injuriously  interfere  with  the  light 
and  air  at  the  back.  The  governors,  however,  appear  to  have 
felt  that  extra  accommodation  and  greater  facilities  for 
classifying  the  patients  were  of  greater  importance.  Accord- 
ingly they  instructed  their  architect  to  lay  the  foundations 
of  the  back  basement  wards  in  a  bed  of  concrete,  and  to  con- 
struct the  basement  walls  of  sufficient  strength  to  carry  with 
ease  the  weight  of  three  additional  storeys.  By  October, 
1844,  in  pursuance  of  the  general  scheme  adopted,  Smirke 
had  advanced  the  wings  on  each  side  beyond  the  workrooms 
and  billiard-rooms.  My  friend  Miss  S.  who  came  into  resi- 
dence in  1854  (the  year  of  the  historian's  birth)  thinks  that 
the  infirmaries  and  the  "  Old  Ball  Room,"  the  extreme  point 
of  the  female  wing,  were  finished  in  this  year.  The  "  Old 
Ball  Room  "  (now  the  quarters  of  the  night-nurses)  and  the 
"  Large  Billiard  Room "  (now  devoted  exclusively  to  the 
medical  staff)  were  till  the  dawn  of  the  twentieth  century 
miniature  Crystal  Palaces,  the  sides  being  all  glass  and  iron. 
So  far  I  have  found  no  official  explanation  of  their  peculiar 
construction,  which  was  altered  about  1905,  but  it  is  quite 
possible  that  they  were  originally  intended  for  conservatories, 
which  would  provide  a  safe  and  agreeable  occupation  for 
some  of  the  patients.  They  used,  at  any  rate,  as  I  remember, 
to  generate  the  tropical  heat  of  a  palm-house  at  Kew 
Gardens  ! 

To  the  east  and  west  of  these  wings  are  the  "  airing- 
courts,"  or  "green  yards,"  as  they  were  called  in  1820.  Let 
us  pass  into  the  "  back  garden  "  (as  we  call  it  to-day),  where 
our  ladies  walk,  play  tennis,  and  might  very  well  do  some 
gardening.  Imagine  that  we  are  standing  just  outside  the 
projecting  workroom  of  F.  ib.  From  181 5  to  1864  all  the 
land  to  the  left  or  east  of  us  was  appropriated  to  the  female 
Criminal  Block  and  its  exercise-ground.  Perhaps  a  glance 
at  the  architectural  plan  and  at  the  illustration  will  make 
my  explanation  still  more  intelligible.     On  the  other  side  of 


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3o6     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

the  house  a  much  larger  male  "  Criminal  Block  "  with  its 
court  for  exercise  sprawled  over  the  tennis-court,  the  bowling- 
green,  and  racquet-court  of  to-day.  These  prisons  (four 
storeys  high,  I  should  add),  which  were  built  and  maintained 
by  the  State  for  such  people  as  would  now  be  detained  in 
Broadmoor  "during  his  majesty's  pleasure,"  were  isolated  from 
the  rest  of  the  buildings  by  high  walls,  but  they  were  con- 
nected by  passages  with  lA.  lb  and  F.  ib.  The  workroom 
and  the  billiard-room  of  these  wards  were  built  in  1866 
partly  on  the  site  of  these  passages.  There  is  so  much  to  be 
said  in  such  a  perambulation  about  the  hospital  buildings 
generally  that  I  must  reserve  what  I  have  to  say  about  the 
establishment  of  the  Criminal  Blocks  and  their  troublesome 
tenants  to  another  chapter. 

Before  we    leave    the    airing-courts    for    the    workshops, 
let  me  jot  down    some  necessary    memoranda   about  King 
Edward's  School  for  Girls  and  the  subterranean  baths  in  the 
hospital.      The   school  was  built  in  1830  on  that  part  of  St. 
George's  Fields  which  was  leased  to  Bethlehem  for  the  aug- 
mentation of  its  revenues,  and  therefore  pays  an  annual  rent 
to   the   hospital   under    the   covenants   of  a   lease.     On    its 
erection  and    until   i860  it  was  a   sort   of  reformatory    for 
children  of  both  sexes  under  the  title  of  "  The  House  of 
Occupations."      The  subterranean  baths  are  at  the  foot  of 
each  "  garden  staircase."     It   appears   to   be  very  doubtful 
whether  they  were  ever  used  for  bathing,  as  they  were  so 
manifestly   unsuitable  for  such  a  purpose.     Soon  after  their 
excavation  in  181 5  they  were  converted  into  storehouses  for 
straw,  and  in  recent  years  they  have  been  very  handy  for 
keeping   the   croquet  set   or   the  box  of  bowls.     It  is  just 
as  well  to  state  these  cold,  unromantic  facts :  otherwise  a 
thousand   years    hence  antiquaries  might  be  gloating  over 
the  "  discovery  of  two  Roman  baths  or  sarcophagi  in  a  fine 
state  of  preservation." 

A  turn  of  the  key — if  you  happen  to  have  one — will  take 
us  from  the  gentlemen's  garden  into  a  stuccoed  court  of 
an  irregular,  octagonal  shape,  one  side  of  which  consists 
of  workshops.     Originally   they   were  intended    to    provide 


l^HE  PRESENT  HOSPITAL  307 

employment  for  the  male  patients.  As  early  as  1822  Lord 
Robert  Seymour  had  urged  with  great  truth  and  force  that 
some  form  of  employment  was  one  of  the  best  medicines  for 
certain  forms  of  mental  malady,  where  it  is  necessary  to 
divert  painful  thoughts  or  restart  the  machinery  of  a  lethargic 
mind.  He  suggested  that  the  making  of  mats,  paper  bags, 
and  felt  slippers  might  be  safely  entrusted  to  the  patients, 
but  it  was  not  till  the  beginning  of  1844  that  these  work- 
shops were  completed.  In  them  from  this  date  for  another 
ten  or  fifteen  years  painting,  glazing,  engineering  and  other 
trades  were  followed  by  male  patients  under  the  superin- 
tendence of  attendants  skilled  in  the  various  handicrafts.  As 
I  have  already  had  occasion  to  mention,  the  patients  were 
mostly  of  the  artisan  class  between  181 5  and  1852,  and  this 
salutary  experiment  was  therefore  inaugurated  and  carried 
on  under  exceptionally  favourable  circumstances.  No  acci- 
dent (I  learn  from  the  "  Annual  Reports  ")  ever  occurred,  and 
it  is  a  pity  that  the  principle  of  prescribing  employment  as 
part  of  the  treatment  was  ever  parted  with  at  Bethlem  :  the 
county  pauper  asylums,  which  are  hives  of  beneficial  in- 
dustries, have  been  wiser.  The  fact  is  that  after  Dr.  Hood's 
appointment  in  1852  the  governors  began  to  give  a  pre- 
ference to  the  educated  classes,  and  the  male  representatives 
of  these  classes  found  work  derogatory.  There  has  never 
been  any  want  of  work  on  the  female  side  and  seldom  any 
idle  hands. 

Right  across  the  western  end  of  the  hospital — say  from 
the  men's  Racquet  Court  on  the  south  to  the  small  court  near 
the  builder's  yard  on  the  north,  ran  a  pond,  marked  on  a  plan 
at  Bridewell  as  the  "  pond  on  the  common."  It  must  have 
been  destroyed  in  1838,  when  the  hospital  was  extended 
sixty-four  feet  to  the  west.  This  pond,  which  was  oblong 
in  shape  and  surrounded  with  a  wall  and  railings,  appears 
to  have  been  part  of  a  large  swimming  bath  constructed 
for  the  landlord  of  the  "  Dog  and  Duck  "  in  1769.  I  imagine 
that  it  absorbed  the  original  "  Dog  and  Duck  "  ponds,  and, 
doubtless,  it  was  fed  by  the  famous  springs.  Appropriately 
enough   it   was,    at    least   in     1823,    the    home    of    several 


3o8     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

ducks,  which  were  under  the  charge  of  one  of  the  criminal 
patients. 

In  the  course  of  a  conscientious  beating  of  our  bounds  we 
have  reached  the  dwarf  wall  and  massive  railing  which  testify 
to  the  diversion  of  the  high  road  and  to  the  enclosure  of 
additional  grounds  in  1839.  A  few  yards  from  where  we  are 
standing,  and  on  the  outside  of  the  north-west  angle  of  the 
wall,  is  a  slab  of  blue  slate — set  up  during  the  mayoralty  of 
Christopher  Smith  in  18 18,  which  marks  the  limit  of  the 
hospital  property  and  of  the  jurisdiction  of  the  city  in  South- 
wark.  In  old  maps  it  appears  as  "  London  Stone."  At  this 
point  we  may  turn  round  and  examine  the  general  appearance 
of  Bethlem,  from  an  architectural  point  of  view.  In  spite  of 
a  somewhat  small  entablature,  the  stately  portico  must  pro- 
voke admiration  from  all  who  approach  it ;  and  the  dome, 
which  was  finished  in  June,  1846,  has  been  ranked  by  such  a 
competent  judge  as  the  Right  Hon.  G.  W.  E.  Russell  as  only 
second  to  St.  Paul's  in  shapeliness.  But  the  rest  of  the  front- 
age, if  examined  too  critically,  seems  to  belong  to  the  box- 
of-bricks  order  of  architecture,  and  the  impression  left  by  a 
prolonged  inspection  of  the  front  wings  (the  centre  block 
being  excluded)  is  that  of  something  dingy,  cheerless  and 
forbidding.  But  the  very  ugliness  of  the  exterior  will  en- 
chance  the  surprise  and  delight  with  which  the  visitor  views 
the  beauty  and  comfort  of  the  long  drawing-rooms  which 
have  replaced  plain,  whitewashed  wards.  Furthermore,  the 
edifice  has  some  substantial,  practical  virtues.  It  is  absolutely 
fireproof  in  construction,  and  every  part  of  it  has  been  con- 
structed of  such  strength  and  solidity  that  the  difficulty  at 
the  expiration  of  the  lease  in  2673  will  be  how  to  pull  it 
down  without  a  bombardment ! 

The  foundation-stone  of  the  hospital  in  its  original  form 
was  laid  by  the  president  (Sir  Richard  Carr  Glyn)  on 
Saturday,  i8th  April,  181 2.  Three  years  later  on  the  night 
of  Thursday,  24th  August,  181 5,  one  hundred  and  twenty- 
two  patients  were  conveyed  in  hackney  coaches — without 
accident  or  incident — to  their  new  quarters,  at  a  cost  of  some 
i^i8,  or  so. 


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THE   PRESENT  HOSPITAL  309 

We  have  now  seen,  from  outside,  all  the  separate  buildings 
which  make  up  the  hospital,  but  before  making  a  tour  of  the 
interior,  I  have  something  to  say  about  the  mystery  which 
veils  the  identity  of  the  architect,  or  architects,  of  the  original 
pile  which  arose  in  St.  George's  Fields. 

In  the  Times  of  3rd  July,  18 10 — to  begin  my  story 
from  the  beginning — there  appeared  an  advertisement  offer- 
ing in  the  name  of  the  governors  premiums  of  i^200,  ^100, 
and  £^0  for  the  best  three  designs  for  a  new  Bethlehem 
Hospital.  Some  seven  months  later  (30th  January,  181 1) 
three  well-known  architects  (James  Lewis,  the  hospital 
surveyor,  George  Dance,  the  younger,  and  S.  P.  Cockerell), 
who  had  been  asked  to  adjudicate  on  the  plans  sent  in, 
made  their  award.  The  first  premium  fell  to  a  design 
bearing,  according  to  the  court  books,  the  word  "  spero " 
[I  hope]  within  an  anchor  :  on  the  plans  preserved  at  Bride- 
well— I  have  some  reason  for  noticing  so  slight  a  descrepancy 
— the  motto  is  "dumspiro,  spero"  [while  I  breathe,  I  hope] 
without  an  anchor.  The  mottoes  given  in  the  court  books, 
as  identifying  the  winners  of  the  second  and  third  prizes 
do  not  (let  us  observe)  correspond  with  any  of  the  mottoes 
entered  in  the  list  at  Bridewell  of  the  plans  deposited  by  the 
competitors.  Again,  while  the  court  books  speak  of  thirty- 
six  competitors,  the  list  shows  that  thirty-two  sets  of  plans 
were  returned  to  the  senders,  and  that  one — the  winning  set 
of  plans — was  retained. 

Inside  this  set  of  plans  I  found  a  letter  from  the  architect 
who  prepared  them,  which  identifies  him  as  E.  John  Gandy, 
of  21,  New  Street,  Spring  Gardens,  Charing  Cross.  At  the 
moment  of  writing  I  can  only  presume  that  E.  John  Gandy 
belonged  to  the  well-known  architectural  family  of  that  name, 
one  of  whom,  Michael,  also  took  part  in  the  competition, 
which  included  James  Elmes,  Joseph  Bonomi,  the  younger, 
'and  other  notable  names.  I  have  studied  Mr.  Gandy's  plans 
critically  and  industriously.  It  is  evident  that  he  derived 
some  inspiration  from  St.  Luke's  Hospital,  but  very  naturally 
his  plans  reflect  the  domestic  arrangements  of  the  Moorfields 
hospital,  or  were  dictated  by  the  experience  of  Moorfields. 


3IO     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

He  has,  for  instance,  put  all  his  bedrooms  in  the  front  of  the 
building  with  the  tiniest  and  ugliest  of  windows.  The 
Moorfields  frontage  was  so  near  the  public  promenade,  that 
the  mocking  wit  of  the  apprentice  often  found  its  way  along 
with  a  stone  through  the  windows  into  the  wards.  The 
authorities  feared  that  something  of  the  same  kind  might 
happen  in  St.  George's  Fields,  the  high  road  being  then  so 
near  the  buildings.  And,  though  Gaudy's  arrangement  was 
reversed  by  Lewis,  the  windows  of  the  galleries  were,  until 
the  House  of  Commons  interfered,  bricked  up  about  five  or 
six  feet  from  the  floor,  to  ensure  the  privacy  of  the  patients. 
After  the  fashion  of  the  former  hospital,  Gandy  placed  the 
female  wards  in  the  western  block,  and  his  disposition  of  the 
centre  block  with  its  offices  and  official  quarters  and  of  the 
basement  wards  for  stores  was  that  of  the  second  hospital. 

I  have  reproduced  in  an  illustration  the  centre  block  as 
Gandy  designed  it.  There  is  no  trace  of  the  present  dome  or 
portico,  the  front  entrance  being  dignified  by  six  plain  Doric 
pillars  which  support  a  pediment.  Outside  each  corner — on 
the  coping — the  architect  ingeniously  placed  one  of  Gibber's 
figures,  a  statue  of  Henry  VHI,  whom  he  imagined  to  be  the 
founder,  standing  at  the  apex. 

Lewis  was  instructed  by  the  governors  to  build  the  present 
hospital  on  the  basis  of  the  three  premiated  designs,  and 
nothing  would  appear  to  be  more  certain  than  that  he 
worked  chiefly  on  Gaudy's  plans,  taking  a  portico  and 
possibly  some  type  of  dome  from  the  second  or  third  com- 
petitor. But  just  as  I  am  about  to  ring  down  the  curtain  on 
the  act,  an  elusive  figure  creeps  across  the  stage,  muttering— 
"  You  have  forgotten  me." 

The  name  of  this  mysterious  figure  is  James  Gandon 
( 1 742-1 823),  and  I  tell  the  story  as  it  was  told  by  his  bio- 
grapher (Mulvany)  after  his  death.  I  am  sure  that  some 
confusion — in  date,  place,  or  person — has  insinuated  itself 
into  the  narrative,  but  I  cannot  for  the  moment  do  more 
than  conjecture  how  the  confusion  has  arisen. 

According  to  Mulvany,  Gandon  obtained  a  premium  of 
;^ioo  as  early  as   1776  in  an  open  competition  for  the  best 


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T3 


312     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM   HOSPITAL 

design  of  a  new  Bethlehem  Hospital.  The  architect,  it  is 
added,  was  so  anxious  to  produce  an  ideal  hospital  that  he 
consulted  Howard,  the  prison  reformer,  at  every  stage  of  his 
drawings.  Now  Howard  was  thanked  by  the  House  of 
Commons  for  his  visitation  of  the  prisons  in  1774,  and  his 
"State  of  Prisons"  was  first  published  in  1776.  So  far  the 
dates  attached  to  parts  of  the  story  may  be  said  to  confirm 
it,  but,  on  the  other  hand,  there  could  be  no  conceivable 
reason  for  re-building  the  Bedlam  of  1776  before  any  signs 
of  serious  decay  had  set  in.  Further,  there  is  no  reference 
to  anything  of  the  kind  in  the  court  books,  or  in  Bowen's 
"Historical  Account"  (1783). 

And  yet  it  is  absolutely  certain  that  Gandon  made  a  pro- 
fessional study  of  the  Moorfields  hospital — presumably  before 
he  migrated  to  Ireland  in  1782.  Here  is  an  extract  from  his 
reminiscences  as  reported  by  Mulvany  : — 

"  The  design  I  made  for  that  hospital  very  nearly 
terminated  my  existence.  It  was  necessary  that  I  should 
visit  every  apartment  in  the  original  structure.  In  these 
visits  I  encountered  the  most  deplorable  cases.  At  last  I 
experienced  sleepless  nights,  and  when  I  did  at  last  procure 
any  rest,  I  was  troubled  with  horrible  dreams  of  the  affecting 
scenes  I  had  witnessed.  I  was  at  last  attacked  by  brain 
fever,  and  my  medical  attendants  had  no  hope  of  my  recovery. 
But  through  the  affectionate  care  of  my  wife,  aided  by  a 
strong  and  vigorous  constitution,  I  gradually  recovered." 

Now  if  Mulvany  had  by  any  means  confused  Gandy  with 
Gandon,  and  if  the  real  date  of  the  award  was  181 1  and  not 
1776,  the  pieces  of  the  story  might  be  made  to  fit  into  one 
another.  But,  again,  the  curious  thing  is  that  some  of  the 
details  in  Gandon's  Custom  House  at  Dublin  might  seem  to 
have  suggested  the  portico  and  dome  at  Bethlem,  and  it  does 
appear  as  if  there  were  two  or  three  plans  submitted  to  the 
committee  of  architects,  which  were  not  on  the  official  list  as 
sent  in  for  the  competition  of  181 1. 

I  ran  up  against  yet  another  legend  about  the  original 
architect  of  the  present  hospital,  when  I  was  dipping  into 
the   "  Memoirs   of  De  Castro,"   which   were   written    by   R. 


THE  PRESENT  HOSPITAL  313 

Humphreys  about  18 12,  or  later.  "Some  years  ago,"  he 
writes,  "  an  eminent  architect  became  insane,  and  was  for 
some  time  an  inmate  of  Old  Bedlam.  At  last  he  was  dis- 
charged, and  when  the  committee  proceeded  to  award  a  pre- 
mium for  the  best  design  of  a  new  asylum,  lo  !  it  was  the 
production  of  him  who  had  been  confined  in  the  old  one. 
Still  more  strange  to  say  he  lived  to  see  its  completion,  was 
the  first  to  be  confined  there,  and  the  first  to  be  removed  to  a 
better  world." 

This  story  is  rather  too  dramatically  complete,  and  I  can 
find  nothing  in  our  registers  of  admissions  and  discharges  to 
connect  it  with  Gandy.  Indeed,  I  cannot  help  thinking  that 
it  grew  out  of  the  story  of  James  Tilley  Matthews.  He  was 
a  patient,  to  whom  the  governors  presented  ^30  in  acknow- 
ledgment of  his  skill  and  trouble  in  drawing  the  plans  which 
he  sent  in  for  the  competition  of  181 1.  A  series  of  his 
elaborate  plans  with  a  whole  volume  of  elucidations  may  still 
be  inspected  in  the  muniment-room  at  Bridewell. 

Matthews  was  admitted  in  1797  and  placed  on  the 
incurable  list  in  1798.  He  had  been  a  tea  broker  in  Leaden- 
hall  Street,  and  was  a  well-educated  man  with  a  wide  range 
of  reading.  His  hallucinations  of  sight  and  hearing  were  not 
patent  to  ordinary  people,  and  an  effort  was  made  in  the  law 
courts  to  secure  his  liberation.  The  effort  was  unsuccessful, 
but,  upon  the  recommendation  of  the  court,  he  was  allowed  a 
special  room  with  many  comforts  and  privileges,  and  visitors 
generally  asked  to  be  introduced  to  him  and  to  see  his  draw- 
ings. Haslam,  the  apothecary,  was  put  through  a  severe 
cross-examination,  based  on  a  memoir  of  his  treatment  sup- 
plied by  himself,  in  the  parliamentary  committees  of  181 5  and 
1 8 16,  the  members  of  which  had  not  the  special  experience 
requisite  to  foresee  the  practical  and  logical  results  of  ideas 
apparently  innocuous,  if  fantastic.  In  hopes  of  enlightening 
his  critics  he  published  a  book  on  the  case  of  Matthews, 
which  has  even  now  considerable  psychological  value  as 
containing  a  full  account  of  his  actual  sensations  by  the 
patient  himself  Matthews  lived  in  an  aerial  world  which  was 
peopled  by  beings  possessed  of  the  temperaments  and  habits 


314     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

of  human  beings,  and  the  language — which  alone  he  could 
hear — was  the  speech  of  ordinary  men  :  "JBill  the  ^  King," 
"  Jack  the  Schoolmaster,"  the  "  Glove  Lady,"  and  other 
phantom  personalities  carried  on  their  intrigues  and  quarrels 
among  themselves  with  the  airs  and  gesticulations — visible 
to  himself  alone — of  the  court  or  the  boudoir,  but  these 
inquisitors  united  in  inflicting  upon  their  victim  the  most 
excruciating  tortures.  Haslam's  monograph  is  illustrated  by 
a  weird  but  exhaustive  drawing  done  by  this  crazy  fellow  of 
the  supernatural  apparatus — which  was  ever  before  his  eyes 
— by  which  his  malignant  persecutors  continuously  tortured 
him — by  the  turn  of  a  lever  infecting  his  blood  with  noisome 
effluvia,  or  affecting  muscles  and  nerves  and  flesh  with  the 
sensations  of  every  kind  of  agony :  these  are  the  "  delusions 
of  persecution,"  to  give  the  technical  term.  Matthews  died 
in  the  autumn  of  1 8 14  in  a  private  asylum  to  which  he  had 
been  removed  for  change  of  air. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

NIGHT 

I  PROPOSE  in  this  chapter  to  sketch — I  cannot  do  more  than 
sketch — the  history  of  a  great  revolution.  During  the  first 
half  of  the  nineteenth  century  the  treatment  of  insanity  was 
revolutionized,  though  I  regret  to  add  that  Bethlehem 
Hospital — refractory  to  the  last — had  to  be  coerced  into  a 
better  frame  of  mind.  By  degrees  chains  and  lancet  vanished 
along  with  the  straw  from  asylums  ;  patients  were  more  and 
more  treated  as  if  they  were  only  suffering  from  physical 
maladies  with  mental  symptoms  :  paupers  were  no  longer 
herded  together  in  workhouses  and  cellars,  in  filth  and 
darkness. 

Many  circumstances  contributed  to  swell  the  stream  of 
revolution — some  abuses  in  Bethlem,for  example,  the  increase 
of  a  humanitarian  spirit,  and  the  experiments  of  Tuke  and 
Pinel,  of  Gardiner  Hill,  Charlesworth  and  Conolly.  With 
some  of  these  points  I  shall  deal  in  their  proper  place,  but,  as 
an  indispensable  preliminary,  suffer  me  to  relate  in  some 
detail  the  moving  story  of  the  insanity  of  George  III.  For 
I  am  convinced  that  so  terrible  and  so  protracted  a  tragedy  in 
so  exalted  a  personage  focused  the  attention  and  sympathies 
of  the  public  on  the  condition  of  his  afflicted  subjects,  and 
procured  for  them  a  sympathetic  hearing  in  the  House  of 
Commons. 

The  real  nature  of  the  king's  malady  was  not  at  the  outset 
suspected,  or,  at  any  rate,  it  was  carefully  concealed,  even 
from  his  ministers.  We  may,  however,  surmise  that 
George  III  suffered  from  a  slight  and   premonitory  attack  of 

315 


3i6     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

r^  insanity  as  early  as  1762,  when  he  was  24  years  of  age  and 
had  been  but  two  years  on  the  throne.  It  is  significant  of  the 
character  or  violence  of  the  malady  that  his  majesty  was 
blooded  seven  times  and  had  three  blister^  applied.  I  am 
inclined  to  suggest  that  the  illness  of  1762,  and  perhaps  of 
other  years,  was  in  its  original  form  an  influenza.  For 
Walpole  ascribes  the  condition  of  the  king  as  due  to  the 
"  strange,  universally  epidemic  cold "  then  prevailing,  and 
the  preliminary  symptoms  of  later  attacks  usually  included 
a  "  feverish  cold  "  or  "  cough  "  with  "  stiffness  "  and  a  "  cramp 
of  the  whole  body."  This  illness  of  1762 — whatever  it  was — 
lasted  but  a  month  or  two.  Three  years  later  (1765)  the  king 
was  again  said  to  be  slightly  indisposed,  but  it  is  now  known 
that  the  profound  secrecy,  in  which  his  indisposition  was 
shrouded,  concealed  a  mental  derangement,  which,  however, 
passed  away  after  a  month  or  two. 

For  twelve  years  the  veritable  father  of  his  country  en- 
joyed a  respite  from  the  worst  of  calamities.     But  in  1788, 

V  when  he  was  fifty  years  of  age,  his  insanity  recurred  in  a 
more  acute  and  unmistakable  form.  On  this  and  on  every 
occasion  mental  worry  or  excitement,  arising  out  of  events 
in  his  kingdom  or  family,  preceded  and  produced  the  attack. 
The  king  and  his  government  had  for  years  been  exposed 
to  the  persecution  of  an  opposition  inspired  by  Wilkes, 
Fox,  and  Burke.  And  the  loss  of  his  American  colonies, 
after  the  surrender  of  a  British  army  in  1781  to  Washington, 
was  a  rankling  wound  which  never  closed.  In  1788  the 
tense  nerves  snapped. 

In  an  early  stage  of  the  disorder  Dr.  Thomas  Monro, 
who  was  at  the  time  physician  of  Bethlehem  Hospital 
jointly  with  his  aged  and  ailing  father,  was  called  into 
consultation.  But  the  court  was  very  nervous  about  as- 
sociating the  king's  illness  with  the  name  of  a  physician 
of  Bethlem,  and  he  retired.  However,  in  the  middle  of 
November,  1788,  the  cerebral  irritation  became  so  alarming 
that  the  cabinet  decided  to  place  the  king  at  once  under 
the  control  of  a  recognized  authority  on  mental  disorders. 
The  queen  had  no  objection  to  Dr.  Monro   but  she  hesitated 


THE    INSANITY    OF    GEORGE    III. 

"  I  run  bound 
Upon  a  wheel  of  fire  thnt  mine  own  tears 
Do  scald  like  molten  lead.  " 

King  Lear,  iv.  7. 

{This  illustration,  reproduced  by  pcniiission  of  Messrs.  Siiiiili.  Elder  &  Co.,  7fas  originally 
drawn  by  Frank  Dicksee  for  tlie  edition  de  In.ve  of  Thackeray's  "  Four  Georges.") 


To  face  p.  316. 


NIGHT  317 

to  ask  a  popular  specialist  to  give  up  his  duties  at  the 
hospital  and  his  large  and  profitable  practice  outside,  so 
that  he  might  devote  his  whole  time  and  attention  to  her 
husband.  In  the  end  Pitt,  one  of  the  few  staunch  friends 
of  the  royal  family,  entrusted  the  care  of  his  master  to  a 
remarkable  clergyman  of  the  name  of  Willis,  who  had  for 
twenty-eight  years  treated  insanity  on  original  lines  in  a 
village  of  Lincolnshire. 

The  practice  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  Willis,  who  was,  of  course, 
denounced  as  a  mountebank  by  the  faculty,  was  to  board 
out  his  patients  after  the  Gh^el  fashion  in  the  village  of 
Greatford,  near  Stamford,  two  patients  occupying  a  cottage 
with  a  keeper  for  each.  The  foundation  of  his  system  was 
to  instil  a  wholesome  sense  of  fear,  and  a  keeper  was  in- 
structed to  return  blow  for  blow.  Willis  employed,  as  other 
institutions  generally  employed,  the  blister  and  strait 
jacket,  but,  as  the  case  progressed,  unusual  liberty  was 
allowed  to  the  patient,  and  long  walks  encouraged.  Should, 
however,  a  patient  escape,  the  keeper's  wages  were  stopped, 
and  his  earnings  charged   with  the  expenses  of  re-capture. 

An  amusing,  but  probably  exaggerated,  account  of  the 
doctor's  system  may  be  enjoyed  in  the  "  Life "  of  Fred. 
Reynolds,  the  playwright.  "As  the  unprepared  traveller 
approached  Gretford  he  was  astonished  to  find  all  the 
surrounding  ploughmen,  gardeners,  threshers,  and  other 
labourers  in  black  coats,  white  waistcoats,  black  silk  breeches, 
and  the  hair  of  each  well  powdered.  These  were  the 
doctor's  patients,  and  neatness  of  dress  and  exercise  being 
the  principal  features  of  his  system,  health  and  cheerfulness 
conjoined  to  aid  recovery." 

The  prince  of  Wales,  the  duke  of  York,  and  the  leaders 
of  the  opposition  had  been  speculating  with  brutal  and 
indecent  glee  on  the  hopelessness  of  the  monarch's  condition. 
They  were,  however,  doomed  for  the  time  to  disappointment, 
and  to  the  enthusiastic  delight  of  his  admiring  people  the 
most  virtuous  and  religious  of  sovereigns  recovered  his 
reason,  after  five  months'  detention  at  Kew,  being  able  to 
be  present  at  the  Thanksgiving  Service,  which  was  celebrated 


3i8     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

in  St.  Paul's  Cathedral  on  23rd  April,  1789.  I  see  by  the 
court  books  that  a  gentleman  sent  a  donation  of  ;^ioo 
to  the  hospital  as  an  "  acknowledgment  of  a  signal  act 
of  mercy  to  England  to  be  commemorated "  on    this  date. 

For  another  twelve  years  or  so  the  health  of  George  III 
continued  more  or  less  normal,  but  in  1801  and  1804  there 
were  relapses  of  no  very  great  severity  or  duration.  On 
the  first  of  these  occasions  he  was  treated  at  Kew  by  the 
Willis  family,  but  on  the  second  he  vehemently  refused  to 
have  anything  more  to  do  with  them,  and  Dr.  Simmons, 
the  physician  of  St.  Luke's  Hospital,  was  called  in.  His 
majesty  was  perfectly  contented  with  his  treatment,  cheer- 
fully submitting  to  the  strait  jacket  and  other  limitations 
.    of  his  liberty. 

George  HI  always  maintained  that  the  Willises  had 
behaved  towards  him  with  unnecessary  severity  in  1788 
and  1 801.  Many  of  the  stories  told  by  the  king  of  the 
violence  offered  to  his  royal  person  were  probably  ex- 
aggerations, but,  undoubtedly,  he  was  knocked  down,  once 
^      at  least,  as  "  flat  as  a  flounder." 

It  was,  as  I  have  stated,  a  principle  in  Dr.  Willis's  system 
to  inspire  wholesome  fear  as  a  preliminary.  But  he  also 
professed  the  power  of  terrifying  a  patient  into  obedience 
by  the  eye.  When  Burke  commented  on  his  allowing 
George  III  the  use  of  a  razor,  he  interjected: — "Place  the 
candles  between  us,  Mr.  Burke.  I  should  have  looked  at 
him — thus,  sir — thus." 

George  HI  succumbed  to  the  last  and  worst  derange- 
ment of  his  intellect  in  the  autumn  of  18 10,  when  he  was 
72  years  of  age  and  practically  blind.  The  immediate 
cause  of  his  nervous  prostration  was  the  fatal  illness  of 
the  young  Princess  Amelia,  the  darling  of  her  father's 
old  age. 

For  the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  George  HI  was  confined 

\J      in  Windsor  Castle,  and  there  he  died  29th  January,    1820 

— in  the  rooms  occupied   by  Charles   I   on   his   journey   to 

the  scaffold.      In  this  castle  more  than  three  centuries  and 

a    half   previously    Margaret    of   Anjou   had   watched    the 


NIGHT  319 

lethargy  and  dejection  of  madness  creep,  like  an  eclipse, 
over  the  face  of  her  husband,  Henry  VI,  while  he  who 
was  to  receive  the  mastership  of  Bethlehem  Hospital 
administered  his  "head-purges,"  or  chanted  his  services  of 
exorcism. 

How  many  an  Eton  boy — between  18 10  and  1820 — 
turned  from  his  freedom  and  his  games  to  gaze  up  at  the 
windows,  behind  which  a  white-haired  figure — a  silvery 
beard  falling  on  his  velvet  dressing  gown — wandered  rest- 
lessly from  room  to  room,  hungering  for  a  sight  of  his 
queen  and  children. 

The  mania  of  the  king  was  of  an  acute  character,  and 
was  accompanied  by  definite  delusions.  He  would  talk 
incessantly  for  hours  together,  telling  anecdotes  and  sketch- 
ing the  characters  of  people  long  dead,  analysing  his 
previous  illnesses,  or  repeating  passages,  relating  to  madness 
or  blindness,  from  "  King  Lear "  and  **  Samson  Agonistes." 
Often,  however,  he  would  imagine  that  he  was  conversing 
with  the  angels,  and  then  he  would  speak  with  a  smile 
of  infinite  pity  of  those  he  loved,  because  they  were  still 
tied  down  to  earth  and  its  miseries.  Sometimes,  however, 
there  were  lucid  intervals,  and  in  one  of  them  Queen 
Charlotte  entered  his  apartments,  and  found  her  poor  blind 
husband  singing  a  hymn  to  his  own  accompaniment  on 
the  harpsichord.  When  he  had  finished,  he  knelt  down 
and  prayed  for  his  family  and  people,  concluding  his  fervent 
supplication  by  imploring  God  to  deliver  him  from  his 
heavy  calamity,  or,  at  least,  to  give  him  strength  to  bear 
it.     He  then  burst  into  tears,  and  his  reason  fled. 

"  I  have  loved  righteousness  and  hated  iniquity,"  said 
Hildebrand,  "  and  therefore  I  die  in  exile."  I  confess  that 
my  eyes  fill  with  tears  when  I  think  of  the  pathos  and 
mystery  of  such  living  sacrifices. 

His  people  appreciated  his  piety  and  simplicity,  and  their 
sympathies  and  prayers  flung  themselves  against  the  gates 
of  his  living  tomb,  as  though  they  would  burst  them  open. 
But  fate,  alas!  had  spun  the  destiny  of  George  HI  before 
his  premature  birth,  and  prayers  might  not  avail  even  the 


320     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

most  God-fearing  of  men.  And  yet  the  sacrifice  was  not 
fruitless.  The  doom  of  so  beloved  a  sovereign  lifted  up 
the  tragedy  of  a  mind  in  ruins  so  high  above  the  level  of 
common  things  that  the  eyes  of  Englishmen  again  and 
again  turned  towards  it  throughout  ten  long  years.  And, 
as  they  moved  away  from  the  spectacle  with  pitying  hearts, 
it  was  to  think  about  the  thousands  of  humbler  folk  who 
lay  in  "  darkness,  fast  bound  in  misery  and  iron,"  at  Bethlem 
and  elsewhere. 

Three  years  after  the  incurable  condition  of  the  aged  king 
had  declared  itself,  a  bill  for  the  "  better  regulation  of  mad- 
houses "  was  introduced  by  the  Right  Hon.  George  Rose,  and 
between  1813  and  1845  the  pitiful  and  hopeless  plight  of 
the  insane  received  the  serious  attention  of  the  House  of 
^  Commons,  intermittently,  in  a  dozen  sessions.  The  House 
of  Lords  might  reject  or  revise  a  bill  year  after  year,  but 
Rose,  Wynn,  Gordon  and  Ashley  (the  seventh  Earl  of 
Shaftesbury)  refused  to  take  "  no "  for  a  final  answer.  At 
last,  in  1845,  Lunacy  Commissioners  were  appointed  with 
Lord  Ashley  for  their  chairman.  Bethlehem  Hospital  had 
already  spent  £600  to  secure  exemption  from  the  Madhouse 
Act  of  181 5,  and  haughtily  refused,  on  the  plea  of  ancient 
/  privileges,  to  be  placed  under  reasonable  restraint.  She  was, 
however,  as  we  shall  see,  subjected  between  181 5  and  1852 
to  so  many  examinations  and  to  so  much  physic  that  she  was 
/v       restored  in  the  end  to  her  better  self. 

To  go  back  to  the  beginning  of  a  period  so  pregnant  with 
revolution  and  reform,  it  was  in  18 14  that  a  spark  from  a 
Bethlem  hearth  fired  a  dormant  train  of  sympathy  with  the 
prisoners  of  the  asylum. 

Edward  Wakefield,  a  land  agent  of  Pall  Mall,  belonged  to 
a  group  of  men  of  the  Howard  type  ( W.  Hone  of  the  "  Every 
Day  Book  "  was  another),  who  were  in  the  habit  of  visiting 
asylums  throughout  England  on  philanthropic  tours  of 
inspection.  In  the  spring  of  18 14  he  chanced  to  visit 
Bethlem,  where  he  saw  one  James  Norris  in  his  house  of 
chains. 

Norris  was  an  American  by  birth,  and  had  served  in  the 


\ 


JAMES   NORRIS. 

The  ferocity  of  his  disposition  had  been  very  much  \veal<ened  by  time 

and    disease,    when    he    was    interviewed    by    Walvcfield    :ind    otliers. 

Probably  they   would   have   hesitated   even   to   converse   with   him   m 

the  years  of  his  furj^  and  violence. 

(Aftei  a  ciraiving  made  in  Bethlcni  by  George  Anialci,  A.K.A.) 


To  face  p.  320. 


NIGHT  321 

English  or  American  Army,  where  his  back  had  been  liberally 
scored  by  the  lash.  He  had  already  attempted  to  murder  his 
keeper  and  others,  and  the  nature  of  his  delusions  as  to  his 
food  indicated  a  continuance  of  these  homicidal  attacks.  The 
padded  room  had  not  been  invented,  and  it  was,  therefore, 
necessary  to  confine  him  very  closely,  but,  as  he  could  slip 
out  of  any  ordinary  handcuffs,  the  governors  felt  obliged  to 
have  a  special  apparatus  manufactured  to  meet  his  case. 
This  contrivance  allowed  the  prisoner  to  stand  up,  to  lie 
down,  and  to  advance  a  foot  or  so  beyond  it.  In  these  fetters 
Norris  lived  for  nine  long  years,  reading  his  books  and  papers, 
or  playing  with  his  cat,  Wakefield  was  horrified  by  what 
he  had  witnessed,  and  promptly  brought  some  members  of 
parliament  to  see  the  conditions  of  his  captivity.  In  conse- 
quence of  the  indignation  aroused,  Norris  was  hastily  relieved 
of  his  irons,  but  he  only  lived  eight  months  after  his  release, 
dying  of  consumption  in  February,  181 5.  Pictures  of  Norris 
in  chains  were  circulated  after  his  death  with  extracts  from 
the  evidence  taken  in  parliament,  and  helped  to  hasten  the 
abolition  of  chains,  except  in  the  criminal  ward.  One  was 
the  drawing  by  Arnald,  and  another  the  picture  by  George 
Cruikshank,  reproduced  by  F.  W.  Hackwood  in  his  biography 
of  Hone. 

Select  Committees  of  the  House  of  Commons  sat  in  181 5 
and  1 816,  when  the  treatment  of  Norris  and  of  the  insane 
generally  was  considered.  It  appeared  that  the  treatment  of 
troublesome  and  uncleanly  patients  was  much  the  same  in 
all  public  and  private  asylums.  But  the  searching  cross- 
examination,  to  which  all  the  witnesses  were  exposed,  revealed 
many  things  which  threw  great  discredit  on  Bethlehem 
Hospital.  The  evidence  showed,  for  example,  that  the  visits 
of  the  governors  had  become  infrequent,  and  their  inspection 
superficial.  Dr.  Thomas  Monro,  the  physician,  did  not 
perform  his  stipulated  duties  week  by  week.  The  steward 
and  matron  were  both  of  them  septuagenarians,  and  every- 
thing was  left  to  the  mercy  of  the  servants.  Among  many 
things  which  the  governors  learnt  for  the  first  time  to  their 
surprise  was  that  their  surgeon  (Bryan  Crowther,  1789-18 15) 

22 


322     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

was  for  ten  years  "  mostly  drunk  and  generally  insane " — 
sometimes,  indeed,  in  a  strait  jacket. 

It  is  not  surprising  to  learn  that  Wakefield  and  other 
witnesses  examined  by  parliament  considered -that  St.  Luke's 
Hospital  was  very  much  better  managed  than  Bethlem.  The 
superintendent  of  St.  Luke's,  under  whose  supervision  the 
hospital  achieved  a  high  reputation  in  Europe,  was  Thomas 
Dunston,  who  had  learnt  his  trade  at  Bethlem,  where  he  was 
a  keeper  from  1778  to  1786.  I  imagine  that  he  was  the  elder 
brother  of  Edward  Dunston,  whose  name  appears  at  the  back 
of  our  porter's  badge.  Another  witness  was  of  opinion  that 
the  incurable  ward  for  females  at  Guy's  was  in  its  way  quite 
a  model  for  Bethlem  and  St.  Luke's.  A  padded  chair  of 
restraint — an  anticipation  of  the  padded  room — particularly 
excited  his  admiration. 

The  general  laxity  which  prevailed  at  Bethlem  during  the 
early  years  of  the  nineteenth  century  cannot  be  disguised,  but 
I  should  like  to  explain  how  it  arose.  The  hospital  was,  as  it 
were,  sitting  among  its  luggage  and  furniture,  ready  packed  up 
for  removal.  Under  such  circumstances  an  ordinary  house- 
hold gets  disorganized  ;  and  meals  are  served  in  the  rough 
while  the  family  is  waiting  for  the  van.  Unfortunately  the 
negotiations  for  a  new  site  were  protracted,  and  meanwhile  at 
Bethlem  many  things  were  left  undone,  or  postponed  till  the 
staff  should  be  transferred  to  new  buildings,  and  the  new 
machinery  set  in  motion. 

It  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  mention  here  some  experi- 
ments in  the  treatment  of  insanity  which  had  gradually  been 
feeling  their  way  to  success  in  England  and  France.  Many 
members  of  parliament  had  followed  with  sympathy  the  work 
of  the  York  Retreat,  and  in  181 5  and  the  following  year  the 
House  of  Commons  confronted  the  hospital  with  the  success 
of  the  humaner  methods  employed  in  that  place. 

In  the  spring  of  1792  William  Tuke,  a  tea  merchant  of 
York,  suggested  to  the  Society  of  Friends,  of  which  he  was  a 
member,  that  insanity  had  hitherto  been  treated  by  irritating 
forms  of  compulsion,  which  tended  to  exacerbate  the  disease. 
The  Friends  resolved,  therefore,  to   try  the  experiment  of 


NIGHT  323 

treating  the  irrational  as  if  they  were  rational  beings,  and  to 
dispense,  as  far  as  possible,  with  irritating  forms  of  coercion. 
Many  obstacles  barred  the  way  to  the  accomplishment  of  their 
novel  idea,  but  in  1796  the  York  Retreat  was  opened,  and  by 
degrees  its  influence  began  to  make  itself  felt  in  ever-widening 
circles. 

Curiously  enough  in  the  year  1793  it  had  also  occurred  to 
Philippe  Pinel,  medical  director  of  the  Bicetre  in  Paris,  that 


WILLIAM   TUKE. 
A  centenary  medallion. 

his  patients  had  also  a  just  claim  to  share  in  the  "  rights  of 
man,"  and  he  asked  permission  of  his  superiors  to  suppress 
all  irons.  The  Directory  had  just  inaugurated  the  reign  of 
terror,  in  France,  but  they  had  no  wish  to  add  terror  to 
terror. 

"  Look  here,  citizen "  (said  Couthon,  or  some  such 
monster),  "  thou  art  mad  thyself  to  think  of  letting  loose  such 
wild  beasts  ! " 

However,  at  last  permission  was  grudgingly  given  on  con- 


324     THE    STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

dition  that  Pinel  harboured  no  "enemies  of  the  people" 
among  his  patients,  and  in  two  years  Pinel,  who  had  medical 
knowledge  and  discretion,  had  replaced  the  chains  and 
dungeons  of  the  Bicetre  by  promenades  and  workshops. 

In  the  spring  of  1816  the  House  of  Commons  forwarded 
to  the  governors  a  copy  of  the  evidence  taken  before  their 
committee,  expressing  at  the  same  time  their  desire  that  it 
should  be  carefully  considered  before  the  annual  re-election 
of  the  medical  officers.  The  governors  were  afraid  to  run 
counter  to  the  current  of  public  opinion,  which  was  running 
high  at  the  time ;  accordingly  they  refused  to  re-elect 
Thomas  Monro,  their  physician,  and  their  "apothecary,"  John 
Haslam.  Less  than  a  year  previously  Haslam's  health  had 
been  drunk  and  congratulations  tendered  to  him  at  the 
annual  dinner  of  the  governors  on  the  result  of  his 
examination. 

I  have  read  the  evidence  of  this  parliamentary  committee 
two  or  three  times  over,  and  I  have  read  it  with  the 
judgment  of  one  who  has  had  twenty-two  years'  experience 
of  the  extraordinary  conditions  under  which  the  officers  of 
an  asylum  have  to  work.  After  the  fullest  consideration  of 
the  report  I  endorse  the  opinion  of  one  of  the  governors 
that  Haslam  was  "sacrificed  to  public  clamour  and  party 
spirit."  He  had  proposed  that  two  adjoining  cells  should 
be  set  apart  for  Norris,  to  serve  as  a  sleeping-room  and  a 
day-room  :  he  did  not  suggest  the  iron  apparatus,  in  which 
he  was  housed  ;  and  he  had  taken  the  precaution  to  see  that 
the  sub-committee  recorded  in  the  minutes  their  decision  as 
to  the  treatment  to  be  pursued  in  the  case. 

Haslam  had  carried  out  with  zeal  and  firmness  the  system 
approved  by  his  employers,  he  had  introduced  many 
reforms,  and  he  had  only  been  absent  from  the  weekly 
meetings  of  the  sub-committee  three  times  in  the  course  of 
twenty-one  years.  Nevertheless,  he  was  turned  out  of  the 
hospital  at  the  age  of  fifty-two  without  a  pension,  although  a 
pension  was  not  withheld  from  other  contemporary  officials, 
whose  accounts  or  sobriety  there  had  been  reason  to  question. 

Dismissal,  for  the  moment,  spelt  disaster,  and  an  appeal 


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NIGHT  .  325 

was  made  to  Individual  governors  to  relieve  his  distress.  It 
appears,  however,  from  a  catalogue  which  I  disinterred  in 
the  British  Museum  that  he  was  forced  to  part  with  his 
library.  Upwards  of  a  thousand  books  were  sent  to  the 
hammer.  Many  of  them  were  professional  treatises  in 
English  and  German,  but  the  rest  suggest  a  literary  man  of 
wide  reading  and  culture  with  a  taste  for  old  books  and  the 
curiosities  of  literature. 

Haslam  had  studied  under  famous  professors  at  Bart's,  in 
Edinburgh,  and  Upsala,  but  he  was  not  at  the  time  qualified 
to  act  as  a  physician.  He  was,  however,  in  the  year  of  his 
dismissal  able  to  secure  the  degree  of  M.D.  at  Aberdeen  ; 
and  in  1824  he  was,  after  some  residence  at  Pembroke 
College,  Cambridge,  admitted  as  a  licentiate  of  the  College 
of  Physicians.  It  is  quite  a  personal  pleasure  to  me  to  be 
able  to  add,  that,  in  spite  of  the  ordeal  through  which  he 
had  to  pass,  Haslam  achieved  fame,  and,  I  presume,  fees  as 
a  leading  specialist  in  mental  disorders,  an  author  of  works 
on  insanity,  and  as  a  man  of  letters.  In  the  "  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography"  will  be  found  a  list  of  his  professional 
works,  which  have  yielded  me  much  general  information. 
But  in  the  biographical  sketches  of  W.  Jerdan  and  in  the 
articles — notably  the  "  John  Barleycorn  Club  " — contributed 
by  Haslam  to  the  Literary  Gazette  will  be  found  interesting 
testimony  to  the  fund  of  humour  which  played  round  his 
pen,  as  well  as  to  the  hoard  of  information  which  he  had 
accumulated  in  the  course  of  his  reading.  He  was  one  of 
those  men  who  could  sit  down  and  throw  off  a  light  and 
interesting  paper  on  any  subject  suggested.  His  bosom 
friend  was  Dr.  Kitchener — a  great  character.  Oculist  and 
musician  he  was  also  the  oracle  of  the  kitchen.  If  you  went 
to  any  of  his  experiments  in  ideal  dinners,  you  found  your- 
self faced  with  the  legend — "  Come  at  seven,  go  at  eleven." 
A  wag  altered  this  into  "  Go  it  at  eleven."  One  of  Haslam's 
practical  jokes  was  to  write  quite  an  insulting  critique  on 
one  of  Kitchener's  books,  and  then  to  goad  on  the  infuriated 
author  to  take  personal  vengeance  on  a  literary  friend,  who 
knew  nothing  about  the  article  whatever. 


326     THE   STORY  OP  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

In  1818  Haslam  was  living  at  57,  Frith  Street,  whence  he 
launched  a  scathing  invective  against  the  governors.  He 
died  at  56,  Lamb's  Conduit  Street,  on  20th  July,  1844,  at  the 
age  of  eighty. 

While  I  am  in  a  gossiping  mood,  I  should  like  to  allude 
to  the  services  rendered  to  the  art  of  painting  in  water 
colours  by  Thomas  Monro,  his  colleague  at  Bethlem.  Monro 
was  the  making  of  Turner,  Cozens,  Girtin,  Linnell,  and  many 
another  artist.  He  had  a  house  in  Adelphi  Terrace  full  of 
pictures  and  drawings  by  famous  artists,  and  here  on  a  winter 
evening  he  set  his  young  pupils  to  copy  drawings  or  to  paint 
in  water  colours.  Among  the  little  group  was  one  Thomas 
Girtin,  whom  Turner  once  regarded  as  his  superior.  In 
earlier  days  Girtin  was  apprenticed  to  Dayes,  the  water 
colourist,  who  is  said  to  have  sent  his  recalcitrant  apprentice 
to  Bridewell  on  the  warrant  of  the  city  chamberlain — John 
Wilkes.  Girtin  is  said  to  have  turned  his  underground  cell 
into  quite  a  miniature  Academy,  with  the  result  that  he  had 
many  visitors.  Among  them  was  the  earl  of  Essex,  who 
gave  Dayes  what  he  asked  to  cancel   Girtin's  indentures. 


DR.    JOHN    HASLAM,    ''APOTHECARY"    OF    BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL    (1793-1816). 
{Painted  by  G.  Dmve,  ci-igraved  and  published  by  H.  Daice,  1812.) 


To  face  p.  326. 


CHAPTER    XXXIV 

TOWARDS    THE    DAWN 

It  was  decided — as  a  result  of  the  events  related — to  appoint 
a  second  physician  (non-resident)  on  the  staff.  Consequently 
the  departure  of  Thomas  Monro  left  two  vacancies  to  be  filled 
up.  Dr.  (afterwards  Sir)  George  L.  Tuthill  received  the 
highest  number  of  votes  for  one  of  the  new  appointments, 
but  the  medical  succession  of  the  Monros  as  hereditary 
physicians  of  Bethlem  was  not  interrupted,  for  Edward 
Thomas  Monro  was  allowed  to  follow  in  his  father's  foot- 
steps as  second  physician. 

A  month  earlier  William  (afterwards  Sir  William)  Law- 
rence— a  pupil  of  Abernethy — was  elected  surgeon  to  the 
associated  hospitals.  Lawrence  was  in  his  earlier  days  a 
radical  and  a  friend  of  radicals.  He  was,  for  example,  a 
staunch  supporter  of  William  Hone,  who  had  helped  to  get 
up  the  Norris  case  against  Bethlem  with  the  assistance  of 
George  Cruikshank  and  Wakefield.  Moreover,  when  Hone 
emerged  successfully  from  his  three  trials  for  blasphemously 
parodying  the  Litany,  he  sent  him  a  cheque  towards  the 
expenses  of  his  defence.  Lawrence  himself  came  into 
collision  with  our  governors  in  1819  and  1822  on  account  of 
some  lectures  which  he  had  printed.  These  lectures,  which 
discussed  the  "  Physiology,  zoology,  and  natural  history  of 
man,"  nearly  terminated  his  connection  with  us.  The  press 
denounced  the  author  for  his  radicalism,  and  the  pulpit 
censured  the  book  for  its  blasphemy,  flippancy,  and  indecency. 
The  governors,  taking  alarm  at  such  a  storm  of  criticism, 
called  upon  their  surgeon  to  withdraw  his  book  from  circulation. 

327 


328     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

The  formal  demand  of  the  governors  elicited  from  Law- 
rence a  very  apologetic  letter.  In  it  he  expressed  the 
greatest  regret  that  he  should  have  said,  or  published, 
anything  which  could  be  deemed  "  unfavourable  to  morality 
or  religion."  His  public  and  private  life,  he  added,  ought  to 
be  accepted  as  evidence  of  the  respect  which  he  entertained 
towards  the  "  peculiar  excellence  of  the  pure  religion  un- 
folded in  the  New  Testament."  However,  if  his  friends 
thought  that  he  ought  to  suppress  the  work,  he  was  quite 
ready  to  accept  their  verdict. 

The  book,  however,  had  received  such  an  advertisement 
that  it  continued  to  be  asked  for  by  friends  and  foes.  The 
governors,  finding  that  the  book  was  still  being  circulated, 
came  to  the  conclusion  that  Lawrence  had  broken  faith  with 
them,  and  suspended  him,  pending  an  explanation.  In  reply 
he  asserted  that  he  had  ordered  the  "  Lectures  "  to  be  with- 
drawn, but  that  his  intentions  had  been  defeated  by  "piratical 
acts  of  a  bookseller  in  the  Strand  named  Smith,"  who  con- 
tinued to  sell  them  to  all  comers.  The  governors  accepted 
the  explanation,  and,  although  his  book  went  into  many  sub- 
sequent editions,  he  retained  his  post  till  the  close  of  his  life. 
A  career  of  controversy — which  enmeshed  in  its  coils  the 
members  of  his  own  profession — did  not  prevent  Lawrence 
from  making  a  fortune,  and  he  settled  down  into  a  safe  and 
courtly  old  gentleman,  dying  in  1867  a  baronet,  and  the  senior 
sergeant-surgeon  to  Queen  Victoria. 

Two  years  after  the  election  of  the  medical  officers,  one  of 
our  patients  on  his  discharge  presented  to  the  sub-committee 
a  copy  of  a  sensational  little  pamphlet  he  had  written  under 
the  title  of  "  The  Interior  of  Bethlem  Hospital."  I  did  not 
know  of  the  existence  of  this  curiosity  of  literature  until, 
quite  accidentally,  I  lighted  upon  it  in  the  Minet  Library, 
Camberwell.  The  author  of  it,  one  Urban  Metcalf,  usually 
earned  his  livelihood  by  hawking  laces,  garters,  and  such 
small  wares  up  and  down  the  country,  but  he  suffered  inter- 
mittently from  delusional  insanity,  which  impelled  him  now 
and  again  to  attempt  an  entrance  into  one  of  the  royal 
palaces.     In  such  cases — and  they  are  not  uncommon — I  may 


TOWARDS   THE  DAWN  329 

remark  that  the  intruder  does  not  proceed  in  the  spirit  of  the 
burglar,  but  under  the  obsession  that  the  palace  is  his  personal 
property.  Quite  logically,  therefore,  he  considers  it  his  duty 
to  dispossess  the  usurper. 

I  glanced  at  the  little  threepenny  pamphlet  on  my  first 
discovery  of  it,  without  dreaming  that  its  poor,  cheap  paper 
carried  very  much  of  any  value  upon  its  face,  but  later  on,  when 
I  was  reading  through  the  minutes  of  the  general  committee 
for  May,  1818,  I  found  that  Urban  had  used  his  eyes  and 
ears  to  some  purpose,  and  that  his  innuendoes  against  two  or 
three  of  the  officials  were  not  wholly  symptoms  of  diseased 
and  irritable  nerves. 

The  governors  of  the  day  made  a  practice  of  sifting  with 
the  finest  of  sieves  every  allegation  brought  under  their 
notice,  and  Urban,  who  had  astutely  forwarded  a  copy  of  his 
"  Interior  "  to  the  duke  of  Sussex  (a  governor),  fired  a  train 
which  exploded  and  dislodged  certain  persons  and  practices. 

As  a  sequel  to  a  searching  inquiry  it  transpired  that 
Wallett,  who  had  succeeded  Haslam  as  resident  apothecary, 
had  managed  to  extort  several  guineas  a  week  from  the 
wealthy  relations  of  a  French  criminal  patient,  whom  he  had, 
nevertheless,  housed  at  the  expense  of  the  charity  in  the 
criminal  block.  Naturally,  the  new  steward  (Humby),  as 
soon  as  he  had  ferreted  out  this  lucrative  arrangement,  insisted 
on  receiving  his  fair  share  of  the  plunder. 

Arraigned  by  the  indignant  committee  for  a  breach  of  the 
printed  regulations,  under  which  they  had  been  elected, 
Wallett  and  Humby  concocted  a  joint  letter  to  the  committee, 
in  the  course  of  which  they  affected  to  deplore  what  was  at 
the  worst  but  an  "error  of  judgement."  The  letter  of  the 
two  worthies  concluded  with  a  peroration,  which — with  its 
mixture  of  poetry  and  moral  sentiment — would  have  brought 
tears  to  the  eyes  of  Pecksniff  himself 

"  We  commit  our  case  to  you,  confiding  in  your  avowal 
that  there  is  no  person  at  all  times  so  entirely  himself,  nor 
any  man  so  perfect  in  his  judgement,  but  that  error  will  some- 
times steal  his  best  ideas,  and  place  him  on  a  basis  of  fragile 
composition." 


V 


330     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

Even  the  "  basis  of  fragile  composition  "  left  the  committee 
cold  and  unconvinced,  both  officials  being  ordered  to  send  in 
their  resignations  without  delay.  Their  places  were  filled  up 
by  the  court  24th  March,  18 19,  when  Edward  Wright,  M.D., 
was  appointed  resident  apothecary-superintendent,  and 
Nathaniel  Nicholls  steward. 

Nicholls  held  his  onerous  place  for  no  less  than  thirty- 
five  years,  resigning  at  the  age  of  sixty-one  on  a  well- 
merited  pension  of  ;^350  per  annum.  Further,  as  a  mark 
of  "  appreciation  for  his  faithful  and  valuable  service," 
the  governors  took  out  a  life  policy  of  ;^2,ooo  in  his 
name,  and  agreed  to  keep  up  the  payment  of  the  annual 
premiums. 

Dr.  Wright,  if  he  was  "  humane  in  his  treatment  of  the 
patients  and  considerate  to  his  subordinates,"  did  not,  alas  ! 
leave  the  service  of  the  charity  with  the  gratitude  or  respect 
of  the  governors.  I  should  not,  indeed,  like  the  friends  of 
Bethlem  who  read  this  book  to  forget  how  much  he  did 
towards  the  establishment  of  something  like  an  out-patients' 
department- — an  indispensable  feature  of  an  asylum,  at  any 
rate  for  old  patients.  It  was  his  custom  to  attend  either  at 
the  hospital,  or  at  their  private  residences,  without  fee  or 
reward,  any  patients  who  were  ineligible  for  re-admission  to 
the  wards.  I  have,  however,  to  chronicle  that  he  was 
adjudged  to  have  "forfeited  the  confidence  of  the  governors," 
after  a  patient  and  costly  inquiry  into  the  grave  charges 
made  against  him,  and  fully  substantiated. 

To  omit  many  topics,  let  us  pass  on  to  the  year  1837  when 
the  short,  sharp  knock  of  a  Charity  Commissioner  was  heard 
on  the  doors  of  Bridewell  and  Bethlem.  There  was  some  little 
hesitation  at  first  in  admitting  anybody  who  came  in  the 
name  of  a  parliament  of  inquisitive  reformers.  For  the 
court  did  not  wish  it  trumpeted  abroad  that  the  treasurer  of 
the  two  hospitals  and  the  receiver  of  Bridewell  had  fled  to 
the  Continent  two  years  previously,  leaving  the  charities  to 
face  a  net  loss  of  i^i 2,000.  But  the  chain  had  to  be  taken 
off  the  door,  and  after  searching,  sifting,  and  ransacking  he 
found    himself  able    to    praise    much  that   he    witnessed    in 


I  TOWARDS    THE  DAWN  331 

Bethlem.  He  called  attention,  however,  to  the  lack  of  any 
medical  teaching  in  the  hospital. 

I  should  explain  that  Dr.  James  Monro  (1728-1752)  had 
steadily  refused  to  admit  students  or  physicians  to  observe 
his  methods  of  treatment  in  the  wards.  This  interested 
policy  was  resented  by  contemporaries,  one  of  the  reasons 
advanced  for  the  foundation  of  St  Luke's  in  175 1  being  that 
"  more  gentlemen  of  the  faculty  might  be  introduced  to  the 
study  and  practice  of  a  branch  of  physic,  too  long  confined 
almost  to  a  single  person."  However,  the  Monro  dynasty 
was  true  to  the  traditions  of  its  founder,  and  it  was  not 
until  1843  that  Dr.  Webster,  a  governor  who  rendered  many 
valuable  services  to  the  hospital,  was  able  to  induce  the 
court  to  sanction  the  admission  of  physicians'  pupils. 

In  the  summer  of  the  following  year  they  agreed  to  pay 
to  the  physicians  a  fee  of  twenty  guineas  each  for  one  pupil 
from  St.  Bartholomew's  and  another  from  St.  Thomas's.  A 
year  later  (1845)  John  Lathom  Ormerod  was  nominated  by 
the  former  hospital,  and  John  Le  Gros  by  the  latter. 
Insanity  was  not,  however,  one  of  the  subjects  required  to 
qualify  for  a  degree,  and  throughout  the  'forties  the  attend- 
ance of  students  was  intermittent,  and  their  interest  rarely 
visible.  In  the  next  decade  fees  were  lowered  to  students, 
and  various  attempts  were  made  to  attract  pupils  to  Bethlem. 
In  1865  it  was  decided  to  admit  two  resident  pupils,  and 
to-day  two  house  physicians  form  part  of  the  medical  staff. 

My  readers  must  be  rather  sick  of  hearing  that  Bethlem  is 
a  lady  with  a  notorious  past,  and  I  hope  (and  indeed  believe) 
that  I  have  only  one  more  "  Visitation  of  Bethlehem  Hospital  " 
to  add  to  that  of  Henry  IV,  Henry  VI,  Charles  I,  and  of 
parliament  in   181 5  and   18 16. 

In  185 1 — to  begin  at  the  beginning — some  complaints  of 
harsh  and  coarse  treatment  at  the  hands  of  their  nurses  were 
made  to  the  Lunacy  Commissioners  by  the  relatives  of  two 
female  patients.  Hitherto — from  the  absence  of  wisdom  or 
the  presence  of  civic  disdain — the  hospital  had  contrived  to 
secure  exemption  from  periodical  inspection.  No  doubt, 
therefore,  it  was  not  without  a  triumphant  chuckle  that  the 


332     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

commissioners  rang  the  bell  at  the  porter's  gate  on  28th  June, 
185 1,  armed  with  the  authority  of  the  Home  Secretary,  and 
insisted  on  examining  everybody  and  everything. 

I  have  often  studied  the  report  which  they  published  in 
1852  with  a  verbatim  transcript  of  the  evidence  taken:  I 
have  often  read  and  re-read  the  printed  replies  of  the  phy- 
sicians, the  resident  apothecary,  the  matron,  and  some  of  the 
governors :  I  have  carefully  weighed  page  after  page  of 
correspondence.  Bewilderment  only  increased  with  each 
reading  ;  but  if  I  had  to  give  judgment  on  appeal  I  should 
admit  that  the  report  justly  condemned  some  features  in  the 
system  under  which  the  hospital  had  been — conscientiously 
enough — administered  up  to  this  period. 

Two  physicians — to  illustrate  my  contention — were  sup- 
posed to  dictate  the  general  and  individual  treatment  of  the 
patients,  but  they  were  not  resident,  they  had  large  outside 
practices,  and  they  spent  only  a  few  hours  a  week  in  the 
wards.  As  a  matter  of  fact  most  of  the  work  and  responsi- 
bility fell  upon  the  resident  medical  man  (the  apothecary), 
who  had  to  neglect  his  own  proper  duties  of  writing  up  the 
medical  records,  so  that  he  might  perform  the  duties  of  the 
physicians. 

The  commissioners  of  1852,  therefore,  put  their  fingers  on 
tender  flesh  when  they  recommended  that  the  hospital  should 
for  the  future  have  "at  least  two  resident  medical  officers, 
one  of  whom  should  have  paramount  authority,  and  be 
responsible  for  the  whole  internal  management." 

On  the  other  hand,  I  am  of  opinion  that  the  commis- 
sioners, and  for  that  matter  the  governors,  did  serious  injus- 
tice to  some  of  the  individuals  who  had  endeavoured  to  carry 
out  the  system  in  force  in  accordance  with  the  decisions  of 
the  courts  and  committees. 

There  had,  no  doubt,  been  a  great  deal  of  friction  between 
Dr.  Wood  and  Mrs.  Hunter,  the  matron,  as  early  as  1847,  when 
a  committee  of  investigation  credited  each  of  the  two  with  a 
spice  of  temper  and  each  with  a  determination  to  rule  the 
other.  But  the  fact  seems  to  have  been  that  the  matron 
had — very  disastrously — been  allowed  to  divide  the  authority 


'    TOWARDS    THE  DAWN  333 

with  the  resident  medical  officer  in  the  female  wards.  Con- 
sequently Dr.  Wood  found  it  impossible  to  introduce  the 
reforms  he  considered  essential  on  the  female  side,  especi- 
ally as  he  felt  that  he  was  not  backed  up  by  the  majority  of 
the  governors. 

William  Wood  was  sent  out  with  Monro  and  Morison  into 
the  wilderness,  a  scapegoat  bearing  the  sins  of  others,  but, 
before  he  went,  he  addressed  some  passionate  words  of 
reproach  to  his  former  masters : — 

"  I  have  had  to  contend  with  difficulties  which  have  never 
been  appreciated.  I  have  been  oppressed  with  an  amount  of 
labour,  and  ceaseless  anxiety,  and  overwhelming  responsi- 
bility to  the  very  verge  of  human  endurance.  With  a  limited 
authority  and  no  assistance  I  have  struggled  to  promote  the 
welfare  of  those  committed  to  my  charge." 

The  commission  of  1852  was  unable  to  prove  that  the 
patients  of  the  hospital  were  generally  treated  with 
inhumanity,  or  neglect,  but  the  governors  recognized  that  on 
two  points,  at  any  rate,  the  commissioners  were  in  the  right. 
Accordingly,  on  13th  June,  1853,  they  elected  a  resident 
medical  superintendent  (Dr.  Hood),  and  on  November  ist  in 
the  same  year  the  hospital  was  registered  by  the  Lunacy 
Commissioners,  and  has  been  under  their  supervision  from 
that  date.  Nicholls,  the  steward,  was  succeeded  by  the 
genial  and  artistic  G.   H.   Haydon. 

During  the  period  covered  by  this  chapter  the  hospital 
parted  with  an  estate  at  Charing  Cross,  which  had  been  in  its 
possession  at  least  from  1403.  In  earlier  chapters  I  have 
asked  my  readers  to  sit  down  and  gaze  at  the  story  of 
Charing  Cross,  as  it  were,  in  a  moving  panorama.  A  scene 
in  the  Middle  Ages  showed  us  near  the  mews  at  Charing 
Cross  the  "  Stone  House,"  a  home  for  the  insane  under  the 
care  of  some  order  of  monks.  In  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII 
the  mews  of  the  falcons  had  become  the  stables  of  horses, 
and  the  Stone  House  had  been  converted  into  three 
tenements.  A  turn  of  the  cylinder,  and  Pepys  rode  up  to 
the  inn  of  one  of  our  tenants.  There  are  always  crowds,  as 
you  have  observed,  in  these  pictures  at  Charing  Cross,  baiting 


334     THE    STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

a  Spaniard  or  a  Scotchman  with  equal  zest,  pelting  the 
pillory,  according  to  their  sympathies,  with  eggs  or  flowers, 
huzzaing  at  a  civic  or  royal  procession. 

But  the  panorama  still  revolves,  and  this  panel  is  dated 
17 16.  The  "Chequer"  inn — perhaps  once  the  half-way 
house  between  London  and  Westminster,  where  the  judges 
used  to  breakfast — has  become  the  "  Coach  and  Horses."  A 
little  farther  west  is  another  coaching  inn,  the  "  Golden 
Cross."  It  arrogates  to  itself  an  ancient  pedigree,  though  it 
does  not  come  into  literature  or  our  leases  until  after  1708. 

And  now  we  are  midway  in  the  eighteenth  century — so 
briskly  move  the  feet  of  Time  in  pictures — and  we  are 
looking  at  five  brick  houses,  which  face  the  high  road  at 
Charing  Cross. 

The  changes  and  fashions  of  the  times  are  altering  the 
value  of  these  houses  to  the  tenants,  and  leaseholders  (the 
Hammersleys)  and  their  sub-tenants  are  making  petition 
to  the  governors.  The  burden  of  their  complaint  is  that 
members  of  parliament  no  longer  take  apartments  for  the 
session  in  the  houses  belonging  to  Bethlem.  They  prefer  the 
"  wainscoted  rooms  "  and  "  marble  mantelpieces  "  of  the  new 
dwellings,  which  are  springing  up  round  the  House  of 
Commons.  Even  the  shop-keepers  seem  disinclined  to  take 
the  vacated  floors,  unless  the  landlord  will  give  them  "  shops 
as  fine  as  their  neighbours."  Ruefully  they  confess  that 
"  their  customers  are  decoyed  by  the  modern  temptation  of  a 
gay  shop  and  fittings  up."  Before  we  pass  on  to  the  next 
picture,  notice  the  one-legged  sweeper  at  the  crossing  by  the 
Mews  Gate.  He  is  one  Ambrose  Gwinett,  who  was  hanged 
near  Deal  for  a  murder  he  did  not  commit.  He  was  taken 
down  by  his  friends,  and,  miraculous  to  relate,  resuscitated 
and  went  to  sea.  In  the  course  of  his  voyage  to  the  West 
Indies  he  ran  up  against  the  man  he  was  supposed  to  have 
killed  !  At  least  this  is  what  we  are  expected  to  believe 
in  his  "  Life  and  Adventures." 

While  I  have  been  talking,  the  horizon  of  the  panorama 
has  been  shifting.  Here  is  a  picture  of  Charing  Cross  as  it 
appeared    in    1825,  just  a  year   before  Agar-Ellis  obtained 


'*«-  ti!' 


CHARING    CROSS   ABOUT    1825. 

The  higher  and  lighter  blocks  of  houses  on  the  left  belonged  to  the  hospital,  and  occupied  part 

of  its  ancient  estate. 


To  face  p.  334. 


TOWARDS    THE   DAWN  335 

leave  to  bring  in  a  bill  for  the  clearing  away  of  the  courts 
and  alleys  and  "  stacks  of  houses  "  between  Pall  Mall  East 
and  St.  Martin's  Lane.  Across  the  road  is  the  duke  of 
Northumberland's  palace,  which  I  myself  can  remember. 
Fronting  it  are  five  of  our  houses,  Nos.  5,  6,  7,  8,  and  9, 
Charing  Cross.  No.  5  is  occupied  by  Wyld,  a  well- 
known  map  engraver,  No.  6  by  Prater,  a  draper  and  an  army 
clothier,  No.  7  by  Carroll  and  Co.,  lottery  contractors,  No.  8 
by  the  London  Genuine  Tea  Company,  and  No.  9  by  the 
famous  Tom  Bish,  another  lottery  contractor.  There  was  a 
third  lottery  firm  (Swift  and  Co.)  at  No.  12,  outside  our 
boundaries.  Charing  Cross  was  an  indispensable  place  for 
lottery  offices,  which  were  closed  by  parliament  in  1826. 
I  dare  say  it  was  from  Bish  or  Carroll  that  little  Miss 
Mitford,  then  just  ten  years  of  age,  got  the  lottery  ticket, 
which  won  ;^20,ooo  for  her  gambling  father.  The  authoress 
of  "  Our  Village "  tells  us  how  she  insisted  on  getting  a 
ticket,  the  numbers  of  which,  when  added  up,  would  make 
up  a  total  of  ten  :  the  number  eventually  chosen  was  2422  ! 

Tom  Bish  advertised  on  a  mammoth  scale,  and  his 
doggerel  verses,  illustrated  with  coarse  but  humorous  cuts, 
must  have  run  to  miles,  and  limed  many  a  poor  bird.  Even 
Charles  Lamb  seems  to  have  written  "  lottery  puffs  "  for  him 
in   1809. 

No.  4  appears  in  our  plan  as  the  Northumberland  Coffee 
House,  and  according  to  one  of  our  leases  the  upper  floors  of 
two  of  our  houses  (Nos.  5  and  6)  were  also  used  to  accom- 
modate literary  and  other  visitors.  Among  those  who  used 
it  for  an  occasional  cup  of  chocolate  in  1790  or  thereabouts 
was  a  taciturn,  olive-complexioned  Frenchman.  There  is 
little  or  no  evidence  that  Napoleon  the  Great  was  ever  in 
London,  but  I  tell  the  tale  as  it  was  told  by  bookseller 
Mathews,  the  father  of  Charles  Mathews,  the  actor. 

The  rest  of  my  story  concerns  a  business  transaction,  and 
it  cannot  be  told  in  a  series  of  pictures.  On  5th  October, 
1825,  Philip  Hardwick,  the  architect  of  the  hospital,  reported 
to  the  general  committee  that  the  London  Gazette  contained 
an  announcement  of  the    intention    of  the   government    to 


336     THE   STGRY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

make  some  improvements  at  Charing  Cross.     The  governors 
at  once  put  themselves  into  communication  with  the  Com- 


" TRAFALGAR  SQUARE"  IN  1830. 

The  hatched  areas  of  the   plan   show  the  houses  and  land  of  the   hospital.      Bethlem  was 
robbed   of    the    unshaded    portions    on    the    north    and    west,    if    not  on    the   east,   in  the 

sixteenth  century. 

missioners  of  Woods  and   Forests,  with  whom  a  provisional 
agreement  was  reached   in   May,  1826.     Towards  the  close 


% 


23 


338     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

of  the  following  year  the  commissioners  made  Bethlem  a 
definite  offer  of  an  estate  in  Piccadilly,  Duke  Street,  and 
Jermyn  Street,  in  exchange  for  the  property  at  Charing 
Cross  belonging  to  the  institution,  a  valuation  to  be  made 
by  the  architects  of  both  parties,  Philip  Hardwick  and  John 
Nash  (the  designer  of  Regent  Street).  It  took  these  experts 
a  year  to  decide  that  they  could  not  agree  on  the  value  of 
each  estate.  Accordingly,  William  Inwood — a  well-known 
architect  in  his  day — was  invited  by  both  parties  to  give  an 
independent  valuation,  which  should  be  final.  In  the  result 
he  valued  the  estate  of  the  hospital  in  "  Trafalgar  Square  " 
and  St.  Martin's  Lane  (where  we  had  six  houses)  at  ^^38,334, 
estimating  the  value  of  the  estate  of  the  crown  in  Piccadilly 
at  ^47,872.  This  award  left  a  balance  of  ;^9,538  to  be  paid 
by  Bethlehem  Hospital.  The  surveyor  reported  that  the 
charity  would  make  the  best  of  bargains  by  securing  a 
Piccadilly  estate  on  such  terms ;  and  our  governors  have 
never  had  any  reason  to  regret  the  indenture  to  which 
their  predecessors  put  their  hands  and  seals  on  5th  July, 
1830. 


CHAPTER   XXXV 

THE   CRIMINAL   DEPARTMENT 

In  the  earlier  stages  of  English  civilization  men  who  were 
obviously  raging,  raving  madmen  may  have  escaped  the 
punishment  of  death,  legally  entailed  by  their  crimes,  on 
the  ground  of  insanity.  But  until  lawyers  learnt  to  look 
for  and  to  recognize  signs  of  the  subtler  and  less  palpable 
forms  of  mental  unsoundness,  such  as  the  "  delusions  of  per- 
secution" or  the  hearing  of  "voices,"  insane  criminals  had 
meted  out  to  them  the  same  treatment  which  was  meted  out 
to  the  ordinary  thief,  blasphemer,  or  sedition-monger.  They 
were,  that  is  to  say,  either  thrown  for  months  or  for  years  into 
a  gaol,  which  was  both  a  pandemonium  and  a  cesspool,  or 
worse. 

In  all  periods  of  our  national  history,  however,  numbers 
of  insane  people,  whose  homicidal  or  destructive  mania  had 
not  been  detected,  must,  as  I  have  pointed  out  in  an  earlier 
chapter,  have  been  tramping  up  and  down  the  country,  com- 
mitting mysterious  murders,  setting  ricks  or  houses  on  fire, 
and  maiming  cattle.  Such  people  often  escaped  detection, 
for  they  showed — often  they  had — no  consciousness  of  crime, 
and  they  moved  rapidly  from  place  to  place. 

I  have  indeed  found  some  traces  of  the  imprisonment 
of  criminal  lunatics,  as  the  law  now  designates  them,  in 
Bethlehem  Hospital  during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries  :  for  example,  among  the  two  thousand  patients 
confined  during  fifteen  years  (1772-1787)  Gozna,  the  resident 
medical  officer,  noted  that  some  twenty  had  committed  murder. 
They  were  exceptional  cases,   for  the  governors  appear  to 

339 


1/ 


340     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

have  taken  by  preference  acute  cases,  which  were  just 
becoming  dangerous  to  the  community.  On  the  othef 
hand,  from  the  Stuart  period,  at  any  rate,  the  hospital  was 
the  official  house  of  detention  for  a  certain  class  of  deranged 
people,  who  had  been  originally  arrested  on  charges  of 
treason.  These  were  men  or  women,  who  had  intruded 
Into  royal  palaces  with  a  revelation  from  God  to  the  king, 
to  propose  marriage  with  a  prince  or  princess,  or  even  to 
attempt  assassination.  In  the  reign  of  James  I,  as  I  have 
already  noticed,  a  crazy  fanatic  was  incarcerated  in  Bishops- 
gate  by  royal  warrant.  In  the  reigns  of  Charles  II  and 
William  III  servants  of  the  household  who  became  insane, 
or  insane  people  who  wrote  seditious  pamphlets,  were  com- 
mitted to  Moorfields  by  warrant  from  the  Board  of  Green 
Cloth.  In  the  reign  of  George  III  attempts  were  actually 
made  by  people,  proved  on  examination  to  be  mentally 
disordered,  upon  the  life  of  the  king,  and  to  one  of  these 
attempts  may  be  ascribed,  indirectly  at  least,  the  building 
of  two  forbidding  blocks  in  the  back  gardens  of  the  hospital, 
which  were  employed  from  1816  to  1864  for  the  housing  of 
criminal  lunatics. 

The  attack  on  the  person  of  George  III  led,  in  the  first 
place,  to  the  immediate  passing  of  "  The  Insane  Offenders' 
Act"  (39  and  40  Geo.  Ill  c.  75),  the  object  of  which  was  to 
provide  for  the  safe  custody  of  insane  people,  who  had  been 
guilty  of  treasonable  offences,  or  even  of  ordinary  mis- 
demeanours. Hitherto,  when  an  acquittal  had  been  pro- 
nounced on  the  ground  of  insanity,  the  offenders,  who  had 
often  committed  atrocious  crimes,  had — in  the  absence  of 
proper  provision  for  such  cases — been  set  at  liberty,  some- 
times, as  it  happened,  to  repeat  their  crimes.  This  act 
remedied  many  of  the  defects  of  the  existing  law,  and 
provided  the  formula  by  which  criminal  lunatics  are  still 
"  detained  during  his  majesty's  pleasure."  But  the  act 
was  passed  in  a  hurry,  and  required  to  be  supplemented 
by  additions  and  definitions.  It  made  no  provision  for 
the  proper  treatment  of  those  it  affected,  and  many — if 
not  most — of  the  insane  criminals  continued  to  be  confined 


THE   FEMALE   CRIMINAL   BLOCK. 

In  the  back  garden. 

[Drawn  by  Mr.  C.  Naish  after  a  photograph  f  reserved  in  the  stewards  offic^.) 


342     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

in  the  county  gaols  with  other  prisoners.  Here  they  were 
the  sport  of  their  fellows,  ridiculed,  goaded  into  fury,  and 
initiated  into  evil  practices.  These  and  other  scandals  pro- 
voked the  intervention  of  a  parliamentary  committee,  which 
sat  in  1807  to  consider  the  defects  of  the  system.  The  com- 
mittee made  their  report,  and  in  the  following  year  the 
House  of  Commons  petitioned  George  HI  to  sanction  the 
erection  of  a  State  asylum  for  criminal  lunatics,  assuring 
him  at  the  same  time  of  their  readiness  to  vote  the  necessary 
funds. 

It  so  happened,  as  my  readers  may  remember,  that  our 
governors  were  at  the  time  negotiating  with  the  corporation 
of  London  about  a  site  in  St.  George's  Fields,  Southwark,  for 
a  new  hospital.  Accordingly  the  Home  Secretary  (Lord  Sid- 
mouth)  wrote  on  behalf  of  the  ministry  to  inquire  whether  they 
would  be  disposed  to  set  aside  a  portion  of  such  a  site  for 
the  criminal  asylum  contemplated.  The  Home  Secretary 
assured  the  governors  that  the  necessary  buildings  would 
be  erected  at  the  public  expense,  and  that  no  charge  for 
maintenance  would  fall  on  the  revenues  of  the  charity.  It 
may,  perhaps,  be  questioned  whether  the  governors  did  well 
in  depriving  the  ordinary  patients  of  so  large  a  portion  of 
their  airing-grounds,  which  were  but  small  at  the  best.  How- 
ever, they  closed — without  misgiving — with  the  offer  of  Lord 
Sidmouth,  only  stipulating  that  the  new  department  should 
be  placed  under  their  absolute  control,  and  should  not  be 
subjected  to  the  visitation  of  the  county  magistrates.  The 
criminal  establishment  was  completed  and  in  occupation  by 
31st  October,  18 16. 

A  glance  at  one  of  the  architectural  plans  of  the  hospital 
in  a  previous  chapter  will  indicate  the  situation  of  the  male 
and  female  blocks  in  the  back  gardens  of  the  main  buildings. 
Four  storeys  high,  and  generally  reproducing  the  structural 
arrangements  of  the  rest  of  the  hospital,  they  were  con- 
structed to  accommodate  fifteen  females  and  forty-five  males. 
But,  freed  from  working  and  plentifully  fed,  the  male 
criminals  lived  long,  and,  as  crime  increased,  Bethlem 
gradually  became  overcrowded.     Those  who  failed  to  obtain 


THE   CRIMINAL  DEPARTMENT  343 

admission  with  us  had  perforce  to  be  relegated  to  county 
gaols. 

Now  the  House  of  Commons  had  already  in  1807  laid 
down  the  humane  principle  that  it  was  undesirable  to  treat 
criminal  lunatics  as  ordinary  prisoners  under  ordinary  prison 
discipline,  or  to  expose  them  to  the  taint  and  taunts  of  the 
usual  type  of  prisoner.  The  Home  Secretary,  therefore,  once 
more  approached  the  governors  in  1835,  proposing  that  they 
should,  on  the  same  financial  conditions  as  before,  enlarge  the 
male  block  to  accommodate  thirty  additional  cases.  The 
court  of  governors  assented,  and  the  wards  were  ready  for 
their  new  tenants  in  1838.  Not  long  afterwards,  however, 
even  the  enlarged  block  proved  inadequate  to  the  demands 
made  upon  it,  and  in  the  'forties  and  'fifties  drafts  of  male 
criminal  lunatics  had  to  be  packed  off  to  a  special  ward 
in   Fisherton  House,  Salisbury,  and  elsewhere. 

Throughout  these  decades  the  tide  of  sentiment — philan- 
thropic and  medical — was  rising  gradually,  but  surely,  against 
the  association  within  the  same  area,  if  not  in  the  same  wards 
and  gardens,  of  such  patients  as  suffered  from  melancholia 
with  criminal  patients,  who  had,  as  the  ordinary  patients 
knew,  been  guilty  of  revolting  crimes.  Representations  were 
made  to  the  Lunacy  Commissioners,  who  adverted  to  the 
evils  of  mixed  asylums,  like  Bethlem,  in  their  Reports  of  1849 
and  succeeding  years.  In  1852  their  chairman,  who  had 
recently  become  the  earl  of  Shaftesbury,  introduced  into 
the  House  of  Lords  a  motion  advocating  the  creation  of 
a  State  asylum,  in  which  insane  people  who  had  committed 
crimes,  and  convicts  who  had  become  insane  during  their 
term  of  imprisonment,  might  be  grouped  together  by  them- 
selves. During  the  next  eight  years  the  resident  physician 
of  Bethlehem  Hospital  set  himself  to  leaven  the  sentiment 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  whose  duty  it  would  be  to  give 
the  bill  its  final  shape  and  powers.  Dr.  Hood  published 
convincing  pamphlets  in  1854  and  i860,  in  which  he  put 
his  experience  at  Colney  Hatch  and  Bethlem  at  the  service 
of  the  government,  and  he  was  also  able  to  give  a  practical 
demonstration  of  his  views  on  classification  among  criminal 


344     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

lunatics.  Concentrating  the  ordinary  patients  into  the  other 
galleries  he  was  able,  in  1857,  to  instal  some  forty  of  the 
orderly  and  more  refined  male  criminals  in  M.  4,  where  they 
inherited  the  pictures,  flowers,  and  birds  of  their  exiled 
predecessors. 

With  the  most  brutal  and  depraved  class  of  criminals,  who 
remained  in  their  old  quarters,  Dr.  Hood  had  infinite  trouble 
and  anxiety.  Many  of  these  lazy,  cunning  rogues  had  learnt 
to  feign  insanity  with  initial  success,  and  under  cover  of 
irresponsibility  set  all  rules  at  defiance,  encouraging  among 
their  fellows  a  spirit  of  discontent  and  mutiny.  Time  and 
trained  observation  sufficed  to  demonstrate  their  essential 
sanity,  but  the  state  of  the  law  made  it  possible  at  the  time 
for  the  governors  of  convict  hulks  and  prisons  to  refuse  to 
receive  convicts  who  were  certified  to  be  well  enough  to 
complete  their  sentences,  or  to  transfer  them  back  again 
to  Bethlem  on  the  superficial  plea  of  a  relapse  into  insanity. 

In  their  slang  these  convicts  were  accustomed  to  speak 
of  Bethlem  as  the  "  Golden  Bank,"  and  many  of  the  worst  of 
them,  if  sent  back  to  the  meagre  diet  and  exhausting  labours 
of  a  convict  prison,  proceeded  within  a  month  or  two  to  feign 
the  stupor  and  inertia  of  dementia.  Their  supposed  insanity 
gave  the  authorities  of  the  prison  the  excuse  they  wanted 
to  send  them  back  to  the  idleness  and  plenty  of  the  "  Golden 
Bank." 

At  one  time  Dr.  Hood — by  way  of  assisting  in  the  classi- 
fication of  criminal  lunatics — was  inclined  to  keep  open  the 
criminal  blocks  for  such  criminal  patients  as  the  hospital  had 
anciently  received  by  royal  warrant,  but  the  march  of  events 
drove  him  to  favour  an  entire  withdrawal  of  the  criminal 
element  from  the  hospital  at  the  earliest  opportunity. 

In  the  early  'fifties  he  recognized  the  fact  that  the  time 
had  now  come  to  eliminate  the  pauper  patients,  for  whom 
county  asylums  had  already  been  built.  The  pauper  class 
was  draining  away  with  a  last  gurgle  in  the  late  'fifties,  but 
it  was  difficult  to  attract  an  educated  and  refined  class  of 
patients  in  their  place,  so  long  as  the  taint  of  the  criminal 
clung   to   the   institution.     No    man    was,   therefore,    more 


THE   CRIMINAL   DEPARTMENT  345 

pleased  than  Dr.  Hood,  when  he  found  that  the  criminals 
were  to  follow  the  flight  of  the  paupers. 

Broadmoor  was  built  under  the  provisions  of  the  act 
passed  in  i860  (23  and  24  Vict.  c.  75).  The  asylum  was 
completed  in  the  course  of  1863,  and  in  the  May  of  that  year 
eleven  females  were  dispatched  to  their  new  home,  only  one 
woman  being  left  behind  in  Bethlem  on  account  of  her  age 
and  blindness.  On  17th  February  of  the  succeeding  year 
the  exodus  of  the  male  criminals  began.  During  the  next 
six  months  batches  of  seven  or  eight  patients  were  removed 
once  or  twice  a  week,  till  the  whole  number  (a  hundred 
or  more)  had  looked  their  last  upon  the  iron  cages  and  high- 
walled  yards  of  Bethlem's  criminal  blocks. 

A  few  of  the  more  desperate  characters  had  to  be  hand- 
cuffed or  leg-locked,  but  the  arrangements  of  the  South 
Western  Railway  were  so  admirable  that  the  transfer  was 
unattended  by  any  sensational  incidents.  Among  the  last 
to  wave  farewell  to  the  dome  were  Edward  Oxford,  who 
discharged  two  pistols  at  Queen  Victoria  in  1840,  and  a  well- 
known  artist  with  a  tragic  dossier,  whose  paintings  and 
water  colours  are  still  exhibited  to  visitors  at  Bethlem  and 
Broadmoor. 

There  is  one  book,  and  only  one  book  so  far  as  I  know, 
which  unlocks  the  doors  of  the  criminal  blocks,  and  shows 
us  each  inmate  in  his  cell,  mending  boots,  making  baskets,  or 
sorting  his  phantom  treasures.  There  are  copies  of  this 
curious  but  coarse  book  in  the  British  Museum  Library  and 
at  Bridewell,  but  it  is  a  very  rare  book,  and  has  a  history 
attached  to  it.  The  book  was  published  in  July,  1823,  under 
the  title  of  "  Sketches  in  Bedlam  :  or  characteristic  traits  of 
insanity,  as  displayed  in  the  cases  of  one  hundred  and  forty 
patients  of  both  sexes,  now,  or  recently,  confined  in  New 
Bethlem."  The  anonymous  author  sheltered  himself  under 
the  modest  signature  of  a  "  Constant  Observer,"  but  it  was 
obvious  that  he  was,  or  had  very  recently  been,  an  officer  of 
the  institution. 

For  many  years  I  had  puzzled  over  the  secret  of  the 
authorship,   and   was   at   last   on  the    point  of  building  on 


346     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM   HOSPITAL 

the  statement  of  Dr.  Hood  that  it  was  "  generally  believed  " 
that  John  Haslam,  formerly  our  apothecary,  was  the  author, 
when  I  ran  up  against  the  proceedings  of  a  Special  Com- 
mittee which  met  at  Bridewell  on  i6th  July,  and  at  Bethlem 
19th  July,  1823. 

At  the  outset  of  his  examination  Dr.  Wright,  the  resident 
apothecary,  stated  that  a  "late  keeper,  James  Smyth"  had 
"  verbally  and  by  letter  "  avowed  himself  the  author  of  the 
book.  He  refused,  however,  to  produce  the  letter  which 
(as  he  alleged)  he  had  received  from  Smyth,  and  he  declared 
that  he  had  kept  no  copy  of  the  letter,  which  he  professed  to 
have  sent  in  reply  to  the  former  attendant.  The  suspicions 
of  the  committee  had  by  this  time  been  thoroughly  aroused, 
and  they  made  an  effort  to  secure  a  personal  interview  with 
Smyth,  to  ascertain  if  he  was  the  "  Constant  Observer "  : 
Smyth,  however,  "  respectfully  declined  to  attend." 

It  was,  of  course,  inexpedient  to  promote  the  sale  of  the 
volume  by  going  to  the  courts  of  law  for  an  injunction 
against  it.  The  governors,  therefore,  had  to  content  them- 
selves with  thundering  against  the  violation  of  their  confidence 
in  some  reverberating  sentences  : — 

"  Resolved  that  the  publication  entitled  '  Sketches  in 
Bedlam  '  contains  statements  of  the  cases  of  several  patients, 
the  greater  part  of  which  are  false  and  erroneous :  that  such 
statements  are  drawn  up  in  almost  every  instance  with 
unfeeling  levity,  in  many  cases  with  considerable  inhumanity 
and  in  most  with  gross  indecency :  that  the  information 
conveyed  to  the  public  of  the  private  history  of  the  patients 
and  their  relatives,  together  with  copies  of  their  suppressed 
letters  presents  an  abuse  of  confidence  in  some  quarter :  that 
the  several  statements  of  the  cases  of  the  criminal  patients, 
both  as  to  the  crimes  with  which  they  are  charged,  and  also 
as  to  their  deportment  in  the  hospital,  are  detailed  in  an 
equally  offensive  way  :  in  addition  to  which  there  appeared 
printed  various  extracts  from  the  hospital  visiting  book  with 
the  signatures  of  the  persons  making  such  entries  ;  and 
the  committee  is  of  opinion,  on  the  whole,  that  the  work 
in  question  is  disgraceful  to    the  writer,    and    disgusting  to 


THE   CRIMINAL   DEPARTMENT 


347 


the  reader,  displaying  an  inexcusable  violation  of  the  con- 
fidences of  the  governors  in  some  person,  who  is,  or  has 
been,  under  their  employ,  and  manifesting  the   most  unkind 


A   DOSE   OF    IRON — OLD   STYLE. 


A   DOSE   OF   IRON — NEW   STYLE. 


and  improper  feeling  towards  the  unhappy  patients  and  their 
friends  in  making  the  public  parties  to  their  private  history, 
their  mental  affliction,  and  their  personal  infirmities." 


348     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

Among  the  patients  described  in  the  "  Sketches  "  who  had 
played  a  conspicuous  part  on  the  public  stage,  before  they 
were  consigned  by  judge  and  jury  to  our  criminal  establish- 
ment, were  such  men  as  Walsh,  Barnett,  and   Hadfield. 

Walsh  had  been  one  of  the  ringleaders  of  the  mutinous 
crew,  who  murdered  the  officers  of  H.M.S.  Hermione,  of 
32  guns,  and  carried  the  frigate  into  La  Guayra,  22nd 
September,  1797.  Later  on  and  under  an  alias,  he  managed 
to  enter  the  navy  again,  and  while  serving  on  the  Victory^  was 
standing  close  to  Nelson  when  he  fell. 

Barnett  was  a  simpleton  of  weak  intellect.  A  lawyer's  clerk, 
he  spent  the  time  he  should  have  devoted  to  the  passionless 
technicalities  of  wills  and  leases  in  writing  amatory  epistles, 
sonnets  and  acrostics  to  Miss  Frances  Kelly,  a  vivacious 
actress  of  the  early  nineteenth  century.  Receiving  no 
response  to  the  pleadings  of  his  stage-struck  heart,  he  fired 
a  pistol  at  her  in  18 16,  when  she  was  playing  the  part 
of  Nan  in  "Modern  Antiques"  at  Drury  Lane.  It  was 
Miss  Kelly — with  her  "  divine  plain  face  " — whom  Charles 
Lamb  sought  to  marry  :  he  and  his  sister  were  in  the 
theatre  when  Barnett  fired,  and  some  of  the  shots  fell 
into  Mary  Lamb's  lap. 

James  Hadfield  had  been  a  gallant  dragoon  :  his  face 
was  scarred  with  the  wounds  received  in  his  country's 
service.  One  of  these  wounds  had  weakened  his  intellect, 
when  he  met  a  man  (afterwards  a  patient  of  ours),  who  was 
suffering  from  delusional  insanity.  This  man  persuaded  him 
to  "  prepare  the  way  for  the  reign  of  the  Messiah "  by 
firing  a  pistol  at  George  III,  as  he  was  entering  the  royal  box 
at  Drury  Lane,  ist  May,  1800.  Hadfield  spent  forty-nine 
years  of  his  life — sane  enough  for  much  of  the  time  while  he 
was  under  proper  control — among  his  birds  and  cats,  selling 
to  his  numerous  visitors  a  basket  or  a  poem.  The  money 
which  he  made  by  his  sales  provided  him  with  tobacco  and 
other  little  alleviations  of  his  captivity. 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

TRANSFORMATION 

In  the  course  of  the  thirty-second  chapter  we  made  a  perambu- 
lation of  the  various  buildings  of  the  hospital  With  a  light 
heart  you  accompanied  me  from  garden  to  court,  and  from 
court  to  garden,  always  on  the  safe  side  of  solid  walls  and 
locked  doors.  But  a  tour  of  the  wards  and  halls  behind  the 
walls  and  locks  need  have  no  terrors  even  for  the  nervous  and 
sensitive,  for  I  shall  only  take  you  where  you  will  receive  a 
cordial  and  courteous  reception.  I  am  sure,  moreover,  that 
you  will  find  our  residents  just  as  interested  as  yourselves, 
who  come  from  the  world  outside,  in  hearing  how  the  hospital 
and  its  patients,  their  diet  and  their  surroundings,  underwent 
quite  a  transformation,  in  the  course  of  a  century. 

Passing  through  the  pillars  of  the  noble  portico,  which 
divides  the  house  of  the  resident  physician  from  that  of 
the  second  medical  officer  on  your  left,  we  pass  into  the 
entrance  hall.  Here  until  1858,  or  thereabouts.  Gibber's 
colossal  statues  couched  behind  curtains,  which  were  drawn 
aside  on  committee  days.  Such  dread  reminders  of  mental 
agony  and  of  the  mind  in  ruins  carried  misgiving  and 
suspicion  into  the  hearts  of  those  who  had  come  up  on  such, 
days  to  submit  afflicted  relatives  to  the  treatment  and 
discipline  of  an  asylum.  Consequently  the  figures  were  sent 
into  banishment  at  the  South  Kensington  Museum. 

In  front  of  us  (to  the  right,  or  west)  is  the  steward's  office. 
Naturally  it  faces  the  house,  which  was  appropriated  to  him 
at  the  beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century ;  and  he  had  a 
large  store-room  attached  to  his  office  as  late  as  the  'fifties, 

349  ^ 


350     THE  STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

which  is  represented  by  the  clerks'  office  and  the  case-book 
room  of  to-day.  To  our  left  {i.e.,  to  the  east)  stands  the 
dispensary,  which  appears  to  have  always  occupied  the  same 
position,  and  in  front  of  it  what  used  to  be  known  as  the 
"  physician's  parlour."  Here  the  resident  physician  is  "  at 
home"  every  Monday  to  a  host  of  anxious  or  bewildered 
callers,  who  have  just  parted  from  their  friends  in  the  galleries 
— at  four  o'clock  to  the  second.  To  the  left  of  this  office  is 
the  waiting-room,  with  its  reassuring  photographs  of  the  staff 
and  wards,  and  the  typist's  office  with  its  letter-books. 
These  two  rooms  combined  seemed  to  have  made  up  the 
"  servants'  hall,"  or  "  visiting-room,"  of  the  'twenties.  In  this 
hall  (for  there  were  no  night  watches  and  clocks  till  the 
'forties)  each  attendant  took  his  turn  of  watching  four  hours 
each  night,  within  sight  and  sound  of  the  ward  bells.  In  the 
"  servants'  hall "  male  patients  also  saw  their  visitors  at  this 
period,  the  female  patients  receiving  theirs  in  the  waiting- 
room  adjoining  the  committee  room.  For  a  few  years 
Divine  service,  which  was  regarded  in  1816  as  an  experiment 
of  very  doubtful  value,  was  held  here  on  Sundays  at  half-past 
nine,  and  also  on  Tuesdays  and  Thursdays,  the  congregation 
comprising  both  the  civil  and  criminal  patients. 

I  shall  be  glad  if  you  will  now  follow  me  into  some  of  the 
wards  on  both  sides  of  the  house,  for  I  want  you,  first  of  all, 
to  get  a  general  impression  of  our  present  environment. 
Here,  on  the  eastern  side  devoted  to  the  neater  and  more 
careful  sex,  you  might  be  in  the  drawing-room  of  a  ladies' 
club  in  Piccadilly.  There  are  flowers,  pictures,  and  nick- 
nacks  everywhere ;  really  a  lady  visitor  feels  that  she  must  sit 
down  on  one  of  the  tempting  sofas,  and  order  afternoon  tea 
from  one  of  the  pleasant,  uniformed  maids,  while  she  turns 
over  the  pages  of  an  illustrated  paper,  or  a  recent  novel.  If 
by  way  of  contrast  and  complement,  we  cross  over  to  the 
western  wards,  we  shall  find  the  smoking-rooms,  the  card- 
tables,  and  the  billiard-rooms  of  a  Pall  Mall  palace.  These 
cavernous  arm-chairs  would  transform  Spartans  into  dreamy 
lotus-eaters.  Perhaps,  if  you  looked  closely  at  the  windows, 
you  would  see  how  unmistakably  they  betray  their  origin  and 


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TRANSFORMA  TION  3  5 1 

use,  but  your  attention  is  diverted  now  by  a  natural  history 
case,  now  by  a  gallery  of  engravings.  You  cannot,  to  be 
sure,  call  for  a  liqueur  and  coffee,  but  somebody  can  always 
find  you  a  cigarette,  or  some  forgotten  grains  of  loose  tobacco, 
for  we  are  all  devotees  of  the  mystic  weed. 

You  have  been  privileged  to  pass  beyond  the  fence  of 
iron  spears,  which  protects  us  from  an  inquisitive  and  un- 
imaginative world,  and  you  must  acknowledge  that  we  dwell 
in  quite  a  little  earthly  paradise  of  our  own.  Ah !  if  only 
Adam  and  Eve  were  content  with  their  Eden,  and  did  not 
seek  to  taste  too  soon  of  the  Tree  of  Life  and  Liberty. 

This  comfort,  refinement,  and  luxury  has  transformed 
these  long  avenues  only  within  the  last  twenty  years  :  grub 
and  chrysalis  preceded  the  butterfly.  Dismantle  the  wards 
of  their  rich,  warm  carpets  and  agreeable  furniture  :  send 
away  all  the  pictures,  flowers,  and  cabinets  of  curiosities. 
Imagine  just  a  bare  ward  with  bare  walls  and  floors  bare, 
except  for  some  bare  wooden  benches  screwed  down  at 
intervals  to  the  unstained  floors.  This  was  the  grub  stage  of 
Bethlehem  Hospital  between  181 5  and  1852.  Our  wards,  I 
have  read,  were  spotlessly  clean  :  they  were  whitewashed 
twice  a  year  :  no  unpleasant  odours  betrayed  an  ill-drained  or 
ill-cleaned  house.  Good  order  and  quietness  prevailed — at 
any  rate  in  the  receiving  wards  (No.  2),  the  convalescent 
wards  (No.  3),  and  the  incurable  wards  (Nos.  4  and  5),  even 
though  there  was  only  one  nurse  or  attendant  in  charge  of 
each  of  these  wards,  perhaps  as  late  as  1842,  when  additional 
attendants  were  appointed  and  salaries  increased.  You  will 
understand  at  once,  without  my  adding  letterpress  to  the 
picture,  that  these  are  the  wards  of  a  model  workhouse,  and  it 
is  necessary  to  add  that  those  who  sat  brooding  alone  or  paced 
restlessly  up  and  down  within  them  belonged,  in  the  main,  to 
the  lower  classes.  I  will  now  try  to  explain  to  you  how  the 
grub  grew  into  a  butterfly,  how  a  workhouse  was  transformed 
into  a  club. 

We  must  not  be  unjust  to  the  governors  of  the  grub  period. 
I  have  been  privileged  to  read  through  the  minutes  of  the 
committee  and  courts  of  the  nineteenth  century,  so  far  as  it 


352     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

was  desirable,  and  I  have  had  access  to  the  annual  reports  of 
the  physicians,  which  have  been  issued  in  type  since  1848. 
You  feel,  as  you  peruse  the  reports  made  and  the  statistics 
submitted  to  the  governors  each  week,  that  no  institution 
could  be  administered  on  stricter  lines  of  business.  Each 
account  is  checked,  and  every  complaint,  however  trivial,  is 
rigorously  investigated.  Throughout  the  first  half  of  the 
nineteenth  century  there  were  always  critics  raking  up 
Bethlem's  past  against  her,  and— with  more  justification — 
trying  to  make  her  amenable  to  public  control.  But  I 
can  testify — for  I  know — how  anxious  these  men  of  business 
and  money  and  charity  were — in  their  own  way  and  always 
at  their  own  pace — to  do  everything  that,  after  mature  con- 
sideration by  two  economical  committees,  seemed  to  be  for 
the  real  welfare  of  the  hospital,  its  staff,  and  above  all,  of 
its  patients. 

Between  18 15  and  1854,  for  example,  they  found  them- 
selves able — thanks  to  a  prudent  husbanding  of  their  resources 
— to  double  the  accommodation  of  the  institution,  no  fewer 
than  four  hundred  patients  being  in  residence  at  the  same 
time  in  the  later  'forties.  In  some  ways,  indeed,  we  of  the 
present  generation  have  fallen  short  of  the  standard  of  their 
beneficent  wisdom,  for  after  1844  they  introduced — on  the 
recommendation  of  the  physicians — a  system  of  classification 
more  minute  than  prevails  to-day,  separating  convalescents 
from  the  intractable  or  incurable  in  special  wards  and  places 
of  exercise.  Convinced,  moreover,  that  employment  was 
one  of  the  best  medicines  in  mental  sickness,  they  provided 
safe  and  suitable  work  for  as  many  as  two  hundred  and  fifty 
patients,  either  about  the  hospital,  or  in  the  workshops  which 
they  erected  for  this  purpose. 

But  it  was  the  era  of  reform — in  the  reigns  of  William  IV 
and  Victoria:  the  world  was  changing  around  men  of  rank 
and  privilege  and  traditions,  and  our  city  aristocrats  failed  to 
recognize  the  trend  and  significance  of  social  upheavals  and 
of  levelling  proposals. 

In  the  yeasty  period  under  review,  medical  men  were 
studying  the  manifold  problems  of  insanity,  and  propounding 


TRA  NSFORMA  TION  3  5  3 

revolutionary  theories  of  treatment  in  a  series  of  volumes. 
A  society  for  improving  the  condition  of  the  insane  was 
not  only  reading  papers  at  periodical  meetings,  but  also 
through  its  members  abolishing  restraint,  and  treating  even 
the  pauper  as  a  being  entitled  to  consideration,  in  the  Poor 
Law  asylums,  which  were  rising  in  every  county. 

In  1851,  as  I  have  already  related,  the  Lunacy  Commis- 
sioners— not  over-pleased  that  Bethlem  had  so  long  evaded 
their  inspection — undertook  to  awaken  the  Rip  Van  Winkles 
ot  the  city  to  a  world,  which  had  been  so  completely  trans- 
formed, while  they  reposed  on  their  dignity  and  traditions. 
The  governors  were  naturally  a  little  testy  at  being  dis- 
turbed by  a  shaking  and  shouting  that  was  meant  to  make 
them  feel  that  they  were  disgracefully  behind  the  times. 
However,  after  a  little  rubbing  of  their  eyes,  they  recognized 
that  they  would  have  to  adapt  the  charity  to  altered  con- 
ditions, and  accordingly  they  elected  Dr.  W.  Charles  Hood 
to  advance  the  present  hospital  from  the  grub  to  the 
chrysalis  stage,  and  to  bring  it  into  line  with  more  modern 
sentiments  and  requirements. 

Dr.  Hood  gauged  the  situation  as  well  as  the  feeling  of 
the  governors  and  he  may  be  said  to  have  laid  the  founda- 
tions of  the  hospital  such  as  it  is  to-day,  and  to  have  inspired 
it  with  a  new  spirit  and  modern  ideals. 

In  the  first  place — with  the  sanction  and  sympathy  of 
his  masters — he  raised  by  degrees  the  social  status  of  the 
patients  who  were  to  be  eligible  for  admission.  The  pro- 
vincial asylums  had  already  begun  to  drain  Bethlem  and 
also  St.  Luke's  of  their  parish  patients,  and  Dr.  Hood  pointed 
out  to  the  governors  in  1856  that  the  time  had  now  come 
to  throw  the  hospital  open  to  a  higher  and  more  educated 
class  of  people — in  fact,  to  the  professional  and  middle 
classes — with  straitened  resources.  From  the  year  1857 
the  governors  proceeded  to  carry  out  the  policy  submitted 
to  their  judgment,  and  subsequent  events  tended  still 
further  to  elevate  the  mother  of  asylums  in  the  social  scale 
after  so  many  centuries  in  the  service  of  the  poorest.  For 
in    1859  the  governors  were  able  to  defeat  an  effort  made 

24 


354     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

in  the  Common  Council  to  saddle  them  with  the  pauper 
insane  of  the  city — a  class  which  was  being  steadily  elimin- 
ated. Best  of  all,  the  government  of  the  day  decided  to 
collect  all  insane  criminals  under  one  roof  at  Broadmoor, 
and  in  1864  our  Lady  of  Bethlehem,  as  I  have  already 
noted,  shook  her  contaminated  skirts  with  a  vicious  swish, 
as  she  slammed  her  doors  behind  the  departing  convicts. 

Now  Dr.  Hood  had  realized  from  the  first  that,  if  he  was 
to  attract  and  retain  a  more  educated  and  refined  class,  he 
must  be  prepared  to  offer  them  something  akin  to  what 
they  were  familiar  with  in  their  own  homes.  As  early, 
therefore,  as  1852  the  wizard  waved  his  wand,  and  the 
great  transformation  began.  Carpets  began  to  find  their 
way  into  chilly  bedrooms,  and  cocoa-nut  matting  to  unroll 
itself  over  the  bare  boards  of  the  echoing  promenades. 
Hey !  presto !  and  the  wooden  benches  and  tables  that 
sparsely  dotted  the  austere  wards  turned  into  arm-chairs  and 
sofas,  of  a  comfortable,  if  not  luxurious^  pattern,  and  straight- 
way multiplied  exceedingly.  More  magic,  for  the  unadorned 
walls  broke  out  into  lines  of  pictures,  the  gift  of  Mr.  Graves, 
a  well-known  print  seller  of  Pall  Mall,  and,  still  more 
marvellous  to  relate,  statues  in  light  robes  of  plaster,  tripped 
into  the  wards  and  obligingly  occupied  ugly  corners,  while 
the  busts  of  poets  and  kings  and  soldiers  radiated  sermons 
on  hope  and  courage  and  patience  from  their  exalted  pulpits 
between  the  windows. 

Dr.  Hood  was  also  the  Thor  who  with  his  hammer 
knocked  out  of  the  thick  brick  walls  the  heavy  iron  guards, 
which  disfigured  and  darkened  all  the  windows  in  the  upper 
galleries  until  1854.  There  is  a  solitary  specimen  of  these 
iron  guards  left  embedded  in  the  building,  like  one  of 
the  fossils  in  the  Portland  stone  pillars  of  the  portico.  It 
may  be  inspected — and  shuddered  at — on  the  landing  west 
of  the  chapel  door.  You  might  imagine  from  a  casual  glance 
at  it  that  you  would  be  able — once  the  casement  was  opened, 
to  wriggle  through  the  iron  criss-cross  work  of  the  illus- 
tration, but  it  is  too  ingeniously  contrived  to  allow  exit, 
even  to  a  professional  contortionist ! 


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TRANSFORMA  TION 


355 


Iron  bars  do  make  a  cage  just  as  certainly  as  stone  walls  a 
prison,  and  this  cage-work — painted  black,  if  you  please — 
obstructed  the  light,  and  drove  the  iron  into  many  a  patient's 
soul.  Charles  Dickens — a  good  friend  both  to  Bethlem  and 
St.  Luke's — saluted  the  removal  of  the  window  guards  with 
quite  a  lyrical  outburst  in  an  account  of  a  visit  to  our 
little  colony  which  he  contributed  to  Household  Words  in 
August,  1857: — "The  light  has  been  let  into  Bethlem:  it 
gives  light  to  the  flowers  in  the  wards  :  it  sets  the  birds  sing- 
ing in  their  aviaries  :  it  brightens  up  the  pictures  on  the 
walls." 

Transformation    is   a   long    word,   and    transformation    is 


WINDOW-GUARDS   AS   IN    M-    4   IN    1838. 


generally  a  long  process.  In  the  case  of  our  windows,  for 
example,  the  process  of  transformation  is  still  incomplete  : 
the  butterfly  has  not  yet  emerged  from  the  chrysalis  stage. 
The  guarded  windows  were,  by  degrees,  succeeded  by  the 
general  type  of  window,  which  still  prevails  in  the  corridors 
and  bedrooms  :  the  windows,  you  will  notice,  are  composed 
of  long,  upright  panes  of  glass,  set  in  a  light  framework  of 
iron.  If,  however,  you  will  follow  me  into  the  billiard-rooms, 
and  workrooms,  of  the  upper  wards,  or  into  the  basements, 
you  will  see  some  harbingers  of  what  no  doubt  represents  the 
final  type  of  sash  windows,  with  large  squares  of  glass  set  in 


356     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

strong  woodwork.  It  is,  perhaps,  significant  of  the  comfort- 
able pace  at  which  we  love  to  amble  along  that  this  form 
of  sash  window,  which  was  already  in  use  at  Lincoln  and 
Nottingham,  was  recommended  to  the  governors  for  their 
adoption  by  the  Charity  Commissioners  as  far  back  as 
1838.  Sash  windows  were  not,  I  think,  introduced  into 
our  basements  until  1910,  and  elsewhere  only  a  few  years 
earlier. 

Nearly  every  object,  in  the  wards  we  are  sauntering 
through,  might  be  described  as  a  milestone  to  indicate  the 
great  distance  we  have  travelled  since  181 5.  The  parquet  of 
this  basement  ward  was  preceded  by  a  floor  of  wood  over 
stone  :  earlier  still  the  ward  was  paved  with  cold  stone  and 
for  years  was  very  damp  indeed.  The  zephyrs  from  the  new 
system,  by  which  the  whole  of  the  hospital  has  just  been 
heated  in  every  crevice  and  cranny,  almost  move  me  to  write 
another  chapter  on  the  systems  which  battled  for  a  century 
with  open  fires,  and  fell  back  discomfited.  It  is  a  far  cry 
from  the  straw  to  the  sheets,  and  from  a  single  oil  lamp  in 
each  ward  to  a  blaze  of  electric  light.  But  I  will  make  the 
plain — not  to  say  ugly — meal-room  of  each  ward  a  porch 
leading  to  some  remarks  on  the  contrasts  and  metamorphoses 
of  a  hundred  years  in  two  departments  of  our  daily  life. 
Originally  these  rooms  were  not  only  the  "  meal-rooms," 
but  also  the  "  day-rooms  " — the  only  places  where  there  was 
warmth  in  the  winter.  They  have  also  had  their  little 
dramas.  In  18 16,  for  example,  there  was  consternation  one 
Christmas  :  the  sub-committee  had  ordered  the  roast  beef 
and  mince  pies  to  be  "  suppressed."  However,  Drs.  E.  T. 
Monro  and  George  L.  Tuthill  gravely  informed  their  portly 
masters  that  the  health  of  the  patients  would  be  "  injured," 
unless  Christmas  fare  was  allowed  as  usual.  Christmas  Day, 
indeed,  came  and  went  before  the  sub-committee  sat  again, 
but,  when  they  did  come  together  again,  they  graciously 
put  mince  pies  and  roast  beef  on  the  bill  of  fare  for  Old 
Christmas  Day !  And,  I  think,  I  must  tell  you  about  the 
"  banyan  days "  which  once  served  to  mortify  the  carnal 
appetite   in    these   dining-rooms.       In    the    eighteenth   and 


TRANSFORMATION  35; 

nineteenth  centuries  the  word  "banyan"  was  used  to  designate 
a  Hindoo — the  vegetarian  who  never  eats  meat.  Banyan,  or 
meatless,  days  were  as  many  as  five  a  week  before  the 
'twenties,  when  additions  were  made  to  the  dietary  table. 
On  these  days  broth  and  suet  dumplings  triumphed  :  these 
suet  dumplings,  by  the  by,  were  positively  loathed  by  the 
criminals  and  house  patients  ! 

There  was  a  reason — and  even  a  good  reason  for  the  times 
— in  the  case  of  nearly  everything  in  the  long  annals  of 
Bethlem  which  now  provokes  disgust,  or  a  shudder.  The 
hospital — in  its  desire  to  serve  the  community — gave  a 
preference  to  violent  and  dangerous  cases,  and  the  traditional 
canon  of  the  physicians  proclaimed  a  lowering  diet  and 
depleting  operations  as  the  only  conceivable  way  of  treating 
the  inflamed  brain.  However,  when  the  "  new  disease  "  (the 
cholera)  arrived  in  London  at  the  beginning  of  1832,  banyan 
days  made  a  hurried  retreat  from  the  ward  dining-rooms. 
The  most  elaborate  precautions  were  very  properly  taken, 
and  meat  was  thereafter  served  on  seven  days,  rice  being  for 
the  time  substituted  for  potatoes. 

No  doubt  throughout  the  century  the  food  was  good  of  its 
kind,  and  always  plentiful,  but  it  was  served  under  conditions 
which  never  allowed  a  man  to  forget  the  character  of  his 
disease.  The  meat,  for  instance,  was  cut  into  thin  strips  by 
the  keeper,  the  patient  being  given  a  bone  knife  and  fork  to 
tear  it  into  eatable  morsels.  Steel  knives,  of  a  special  kind, 
and  forks  were  not  put  into  the  hands  of  the  inmates  until 
1848,  but  some  four  years  earlier  crockery  had  been  substi- 
tuted in  all  the  wards  in  place  of  trenchers,  bowls,  and  spoons 
of  wood. 

The  county  asylums,  of  course,  started  life  in  new  buildings 
and  without  embarrassing  traditions.  Even  in  1838  such 
institutions  as  Hanwell  and  Lincoln  were  serving  up  dinners 
with  the  crockery  and  cutlery  of  every-day  life.  This  fact 
moved  the  Charity  Commissioners  to  animadvert  very 
pointedly   on   the  "  gloom  of  a  dinner  at   Bethlem." 

Well,  I  think  we  shall  find  since  191 1  the  chef  has 
dissipated   the   "gloom    of  a   dinner  at   Bethlem":    a  club 


358     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

dinner  of  three  or  four  courses,  which  include  green  vege- 
tables and  fruit,  has  replaced  gloomy  with  agreeable  sensa- 
tions :  it  is  quite  a  sauce  piquante  to  our  meal  to  sit  in  a 
well-lighted  room,  with  a  clean  tablecloth,  and  in  the 
presence — at  any  rate — of  female  society  !  The  transfor- 
mation of  a  ward  meal  into  a  hall  dinner  is  one  of  the 
greatest  feats  of  legerdemain  which  our  enlightened  and 
beneficent  trustees  have  performed  for  the  benefit  of  their 
wards. 

Let  us  now  make  our  way  through  the  dining  hall  into 
the  recreation  hall,  which  was  opened  by  the  duke  of 
Cambridge  on  9th  June,  1896.  In  the  winter  season  some 
entertainment  takes  place  here  once  a  week  at  least.  At  the 
back  of  the  hall  is  a  stage  equipped  with  dressing-rooms  and 
all  the  accessories  of  a  theatre,  and  once  a  fortnight  a  com- 
pany from  outside  gives  a  comedy,  when  the  hospital  band 
serves  as  an  orchestra.  Another  night  there  may  be  a  dance 
or  a  lantern  lecture,  and  on  a  Wednesday  afternoon  a  sewing 
party  in  the  service  of  some  charitable  object.  Quite  a 
butterfly  existence  !  Perhaps  we  shall  appreciate  our  privi- 
leges better  when  we  learn  something  of  the  earlier  forms  of 
recreation  in  Bethlem. 

In  the  'twenties  the  women  solaced  their  winter  evenings 
with  the  strains  of  a  barrel  organ,  took  snuff,  and  "occasion- 
ally read":  in  the  summer  they  sat  on  the  grass  of  their 
garden,  or  played  battledore  and  shuttlecock.  As  for  the 
men,  they  had  to  pump  up  water  at  a  capstan  (which  may 
still  be  seen  in  the  grounds)  for  the  upper  galleries,  but  they 
also  had  their  football  and  other  games.  The  apothecary- 
superintendent  seems  also  to  have  held  a  kind  of  drawing 
class,  for  the  committee  at  his  request  had  blackboards 
erected  in  the  males'  airing-court.  In  1838  cricket,  leap-frog, 
and  trap-ball  gave  the  men  the  exercise  their  animal  spirits 
demanded.  In  the  evening  knitting,  tailoring,  cards,  or 
dominoes  passed  the  time  away  in  the  male  wards,  while  the 
women  were  encouraged  to  get  up  little  dances  among 
themselves.  In  1844,  although  some  of  the  governors 
prognosticated  the  increase  of  a  spirit  of  gambling  or  luxury, 


TRANSFORMATION  359 

a  billiard  table  slunk  into  one  side  of  the  house,  and  a  piano 
timidly  insinuated  itself  among  the  ladies.  Possibly  the 
piano  and  billiard  table  did,  after  all,  raise  the  sluice-gates 
of  vanity  and  frivolity,  for  in  the  same  year  the  patients 
celebrated  the  re-opening  of  the  Royal  Exchange  by  a  fancy 
dress  ball.  It  is  reassuring  to  know  that  the  "  greatest 
gaiety" — "and  decorum" — prevailed.  Eight  years  later 
Dr.  Hood  inaugurated  the  new  regime  at  Bethlem  with  the 
*'  social  evenings,"  which  had  proved  so  popular  a  feature 
at  Hanwell  :  at  these  entertainments — which  did  not  include 
the  association  of  the  sexes — there  was  music  and  whist,  as 
a  rule. 

In  the  transformation  scenes  of  the  pantomime  the  imps  of 
darkness  disappear  through  trap-doors,  while  bowers  of  bliss 
and  landscapes  of  fairyland  rise  tier  on  tier  at  a  sign  from 
the  fairy  queen.  I  am  sure  that,  when  Dr.  Hood,  Dr.  Helps, 
and  Dr.  Rhys  Williams  sent  out  parties  of  patients  daily  to 
visit  the  "sights"  of  London,  or  to  make  excursions  to  Kew 
or  the  Nore,  they  exorcised  many  a  mind  of  its  gloomy  or 
irritable  tenants,  and  lodged  more  hopeful  and  placid  thoughts 
in  their  room.  From  the  first  day  of  my  chaplaincy  I  have 
tried  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  these  pioneers,  for  with 
them  I  realize  that  half  an  hour  outside  the  walls  does  more 
good  than  two  hours  in  an  airing-court. 


£/s/yo^^c-*re:  Sr/f/tcr  Jf/Ty/otrr 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

CHAPEL  AND  CHAPLAIN 

Before  we  pass  from  the  recreation  hall  to  the  chapel,  I 
want  to  show  you  two  places  which  I  overlooked  in  our  tour 
through  the  wards — the  plunge  bath  and  a  padded  room. 

In  other  times  it  was  thought  that  some  form  of  shock 
might  do  what  it  sometimes  does  in  ordinary  life,  when  it 
shakes  a  person  out  of  himself,  his  moods,  and  his  exclusive- 
ness.  Patients  were,  therefore,  sometimes  put  into  revolving 
chairs  (an  invention  of  Dr.  R.  W.  Darwin)  or  thrown  into  a 
plunge  bath.  I  have  never  found  any  allusion  to  such  a  use  of 
our  plunge  bath  at  Bethlem,  but  as  late  as  1856  patients  were 
thrown  into  the  plunge  bath  at  St.  Luke's,  in  hope  that  the 
shock  might  unloose  the  silent  tongue  or  thaw  the  frozen 
blood.  The  medical  officer  of  St.  Luke's  considered  immer- 
sion "  valuable  in  certain  cases  and  with  proper  precautions  "  : 
indeed,  the  last  patient  ducked  ascribed  his  recovery  to  the 
practice. 

I  have  found  no  account  of  the  origin  of  the  padded  room 
in  any  of  the  exhaustive  articles  of  D.  H.  Tuke's  "  Dictionary 
of  Psychological  Medicine."  But  Dr.  G.  M.  Burrows  in  his 
"Commentaries  on  Insanity"  (1828)  says  that  the  padded 
room  was  invented  in  1807,  or  thereabouts,  by  a  distinguished 
German  professor.  Dr.  Autenrieth  (1772-183 5).  The  pro- 
fessor knew  that  some  form  of  restraint  —  mechanical, 
chemical,  or  personal — is  inevitable,  but  he  thought  that  a 
strong  room,  lined  with  india-rubber  and  cork,  on  which 
a  maniac  could  spend  his  futile  fury  without  injuring  himself, 

would  be  found  to  be  the  best  of  substitutes  for  iron  chains. 

362 


CHAPEL  AND   CHAPLAIN 


363 


A  padded  room  was  seen  at  Frankfort  by  Mr.  F.  O.  Martin 
in  the  'thirties,  but  it  does  not  appear  to  have  found  its  way 
into  Bethlem  till  1844,  when  one  was  fitted  up  in  the  base- 
ment ward  on  each  side  of  the  house. 

We  may  now  conclude  our  inspection  of  the  interior  of 
Bethlehem  Hospital,  which  will  henceforth  have  no  secrets 
from  us,  by  a  glance  at  the  committee  room  and  chapel. 
Let  your  feet  sink  into  the  luxurious  carpet  of  the  board 
room,  and  walk  round  the  room  to  have  a  look  at  its  treasures 
and  curiosities.  Here  is  an  altar  cloth — a  splendid  piece  of 
needlework — which  once  belonged  to  the  church  of  All 
Saints,  Wainfleet.  Here  is  the  visitors'  book  :  notice  the 
page  which  just  contains  the  word  "  Elisabeth,"  and  no  more. 
The  signature  is  that  of  the  murdered  empress  of  Austria, 


i:.7. 

r^— 

mrHlfWB^ 

1 

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T  H 
1 

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s^n 

l- 

— _^ 

— ^ 

Keepers' 
Room, 

*    "■    18,6X10.11 

Day  Room.  P^^    t^ 
18.5X14.2  n|.... 

■H       ■■■idilHi  lit^^ 

r  1 

F — 

49 

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.     ..k,  . 

"1 

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J     7i 

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P  = 

iImiii 

■      m 

5- 

WAI 

XD   I 

N[0. 

who  made  a  progress  over  our  realms  on  25th  August,  1874. 
On  this  occasion  I  believe  she  presented  the  medical 
superintendent  with  a  set  of  pearl  studs,  each  attendant 
also  receiving  a  gift  of  money.  As  for  the  pictures,  the  crests 
of  the  presidents  and  treasurers  from  the  reign  of  Edward  VI 
and  other  objects  of  interest — you  will  find  something  about 
them  in  my  chapter  on  "  The  Palace  Beautiful." 

Passing  up  the  fireproof  stone  staircase  we  pause  for 
breath  outside  the  landing  of  M.  4.  From  this  landing  to 
the  corresponding  landing  on  the  female  side  formerly  ran  a 
gallery  known  as  "  No.  5."  This  gallery,  of  which  I  give  a 
plan,  was  on  the  south  side  of  the  centre  of  the  main  building, 
and  included  the  rooms,  which  are  now  in  the  occupation  of 
the  first,  second,  and  third  medical  officers.  It  was  used  as 
late  as  the  'forties  to  house  fifteen  quiet  old  bodies  of  the 


364     THE   STORY  OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

female  sex.  A  short  staircase  from  this  landing  leads  up  to 
the  chapel,  very  plain  and  rather  institutional,  but  not  without 
some  lightness  and  brightness  of  colouring  in  its  walls  and 
hangings.  The  building  of  this  chapel  closed  the  last  chapter 
in  a  long  volume  of  controversy. 

Christianity  founded  Bethlehem  Hospital,  and  maintained 
the  fabric  and  its  ministry  among  the  insane  until  the  Refor- 
mation, attaching  to  the  convent  its  chaplains  and  religious 
services.  But  a  reformed  Church  found  no  sphere  for  a 
chaplain,  and  no  thought  was  given  to  the  spiritual  welfare 
of  our  patients,  until  1675,  when  the  Rev.  E.  Cressy  wrote 
some  prayers  for  them  as  well  as  for  the  inmates  of  the  other 
London  hospitals.  Two  years  later  the  house  committee 
proposed  that  a  "  sober,  aiscreet,  single  person  "  should  be 
permitted  to  reside  in  the  hospital  to  read  prayers  twice  a 
day,  and  to  administer  such  consolation,  or  give  such  instruc- 
tion, as  might  be  expedient.  The  proposal  fell  to  the 
ground,  but  Mr.  Masters,  the  chaplain  of  Bridewell,  whose 
name  I  mention  with  respect  and  affection,  offered  to  visit 
Bethlehem  five  times  a  week.  Masters,  who  died  in  1692, 
was  succeeded  by  Dean  Atterbury.  On  his  resignation  in 
171 3  the  court  decided  that  the  "visitation  of  Bethlehem  was 
quite  unnecessary." 

In  1788  Howard,  the  prison  reformer,  made  a  tour  of 
inspection  through  every  part  of  the  Moorfields  hospital. 
He  found  nothing  to  condemn  in  the  condition  of  the  various 
buildings,  nor  in  the  arrangements  made  for  the  care  and  cure 
of  the  patients.  He  noted,  however,  in  his  report  that  there 
was  "  no  chapel,"  and  in  his  comments  on  St.  Luke's  Hospital 
he  did  not  hesitate  to  assert  that  a  chapel  would  be  an 
advantage,  at  any  rate  in  the  case  of  recovering  patients. 

I  may  interrupt  the  narrative  for  a  moment  to  say  that 
St.  Luke's  did  not  provide  itself  with  a  chapel  until  1842, 
when  a  "  cholera  house"  was  converted  into  a  chapel ! 

Something  of  the  same  kind  of  makeshift  with  associations 
equally  gruesome  might  have  been  employed  at  Bethlem  long 
after  the  new  county  asylums  had  appointed  chaplains,  had 
it  not  been  for  one  of  the  governors  (W.  H.  Burgess),  who 


CHAPEL   AND    CHAPLAIN  365 

wrote  with  all  the  invective  oi  a  Junius,  and  all  th^  style  of  a 
Gibbon.  At  a  special  court,  31st  May,  18 16,  he  moved  that 
it  was  "  expedient  to  revive  the  ancient  practice  of  affording 
to  the  patients  the  consolations  to  be  derived  from  the 
exercise  of  religion,  and  that  the  chaplain  of  the  House  of 
Occupations  be  requested  to  pray  with  the  patients  of 
Bethlem." 

The  physicians  (George  Tuthill  and  Edward  Thomas 
Monro)  were  frankly  hostile  to  the  resolution,  and  in  justice 
to  them  certain  facts  about  certain  forms  of  insanity  should 
be  disclosed  to  the  layman  of  the  street.  Paradoxical  as  it 
may  seem,  certain  forms  of  insanity  are  nourished  by  the 
reading  of  the  Bible  or  by  attendance  at  a  religious  service.  — 
The  man  who  claims  to  be  the  Messiah  finds  in  Holy  Writ 
his  justification  at  every  page,  and  a  woman,  who  is  suffering 
from  religious  melancholia,  adds  to  her  torments,  as  she  looks 
up  every  text  of  menace  or  condemnation  in  gospels  or 
epistles.  Again,  there  are  always  in  an  asylum  patients  who 
feel  that  every  word  uttered  is  pointed  at  them,  and  indicates  y 
very  dreadful  aspersions  on  their  character,  or  is  a  veiled 
warning  of  imminent  disaster. 

The  physicians  of  the  hospital  were  able  to  peer  into  the 
minds  of  their  patients  ;  their  critics — inside  and  outside —  1 
naturally  understood  very  little  of  the  psychology  of  a  , 
disordered  mind.  However,  experimental  services  were 
held,  and  a  year  or  two  was  spent  in  collecting  the  ex- 
periences of  our  officers  and  of  provincial  asylums,  and  in 
debating  the  whole  question. 

Meanwhile,  Mr.  Burgess  was  chafing  at  the  inaction  im- 
posed on  his  impatience,  and  at  last  he  dashed  into  the 
lists.  He  transfixed  president  and  physician  successively, 
and  galloped  round  the  arena,  twirling  the  one  and  the 
other  at  the  point  of  his  lance.  In  18 19  he  published  a 
trenchant  "  Letter  to  the  President,"  and  in  the  following 
year  he  added  a  corrosive  postscript.  The  hospital  was 
still  smarting  under  the  criticism  of  parliamentary  com- 
mittees and  the  abuse  of  an  indignant  and  ill-informed 
public.     The  governors  were,  therefore,  in  no  mood  to  stir 


366     THE    STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

up  any  further  controversy,  and  the  chaplain  of  the  House 
of  Occupations  (King  Edward's  School)  was  instructed  in 
the  April  of  1819  to  act  as  chaplain  of  Bethlehem.  The 
experiment  was  quite  a  success  in  its  way.  In  1844,  for 
instance,  when  there  were  four  hundred  patients  in  residence, 
one  hundred  and  sixty  patients — curables,  incurables,  and 
criminals — were  in  the  habit  of  attending  service.  Between 
1824  and  1844  these  services  were  held  in  the  pumpkin- 
shaped  cupola,  which  preceded  the  dome.  In  1844  it  was 
decided  to  build  an  octagonal  dome,  which  would  increase 
the  accommodation  of  the  chapel,  long  overcrowded  by  its 
congregation. 

During  parts  of  the  years  1844,  1845,  and  1846  the  male 
patients  met  at  King  Edward  School  for  worship,  and  the 
women  in  one  of  the  wards.  On  28th  June,  1846,  the  Bishop 
of  Winchester  consecrated  the  new  chapel  in  the  hospital, 
"  on  which  occasion  he  also  held  a  confirmation  of  one 
hundred  and  six  inmates  belonging  to  the  House  of  Occu- 
pations." The  roof  of  the  old  chapel  had  been  raised,  the 
present  gallery  constructed,  and  an  organ  installed.  The 
chapel  at  Bethlem  was  served  by  the  chaplain  of  the  House 
of  Occupations  until  31st  January,  1856,  when  the  Rev.  James 
Turner  was  elected  the  first  chaplain  of  Bethlem  :  he  was 
succeeded  three  years  later  by  George  Greenwood  and 
Charles  P.  Hobbs.  This  gentle  and  amiable  clergyman 
died  in  October,  1864,  just  a  month  before  Dr.  Helps.  He 
was  succeeded  by  the  Rev.  J.  S.  Vaughan,  who  resigned 
at  the  beginning  of  1892.  The  Rev.  J.  S.  Barrass  held  the 
appointment  for  some  six  weeks,  before  he  was  appointed 
rector  of  St.  Lawrence,  Jewry,  and  I  was  elected  by  the 
court  in  the  April  of  1892. 

Times  and  circumstances  have  altered  since  Mr.  Burgess 
persuaded  the  governors  to  sanction  such  a  form  and 
measure  of  a  religious  service.  The  chaplain  to-day  has  a 
smaller  parish,  and  his  congregation  is  perpetually  changing 
— seldom  for  the  better.  For  since  1870  the  patients,  as 
they  begin  to  recover,  are  drafted  to  a  comfortable  house, 
which   our  good  governors  built  among  the  pine  woods  of 


CHAPEL   AND   CHAPLAIN  367 

Witley,  Surrey.     Their    place   is    taken   by   patients   not  so 
far  advanced  on  the  road  to  health. 

We  hold  bright  musical  services  every  Sunday  under  the 
dome,  and  all  is  done  that  can  be  done  to  encourage  the 
congregation  to  take  a  hearty  and  intelligent  part  in  the 
singing  and  praying.  Nor  is  the  chapel  without  its  special 
attractions — lantern  services  in  the  winter  on  missionary 
travels,  and  festal  services  at  other  times  in  the  year.  But 
the  chaplain  must  find  more  than  half  his  work  outside 
the  chapel.  He  is  the  father-confessor  of  a  large  class  of 
his  people :  he  can  take  some  of  the  ladies  or  gentlemen — 
under  proper  escort — to  see  some  of  the  sights,  or  for  a 
walk  in  the  suburbs  and  country ;  there  is  the  magazine  to 
be  written  up,  or  a  chatty  letter  to  be  sent  to  an  old  patient. 
Hereafter,  perhaps,  other  work  may  be  found  for  him,  and 
he  may  be  partly  a  charity  organization  inquiry  officer 
and  partly  a  well-equipped  almoner  in  some  Samaritan 
scheme  for  the  present  care  of  a  patient's  family  and  the 
after-care  of  convalescent  patients. 

In  other  pages  I  have  striven  to  shed  some  glamour  of 
the  past  over  the  Bishopsgate  property  of  the  hospital, 
what  time  the  monk  offered  up  sacrifices  for  the  living  and 
dead,  or  the  Elizabethan  dramatist  staggered  into  the  long 
gallery,  "  where  the  poor  distracted  lie,"  in  search  of  a  plot 
or  some  characters.  But  I  am  afraid  that  it  will  be  harder 
to  find  any  picturesque  illustrations  for  the  rest  of  a  rather 
prosaic  narrative. 

When  Bethlehem  Hospital,  without  a  sigh  of  regret, 
passed  away  in  1675  from  her  noisy,  fetid  home  to  a  palace 
in  Moorfields,  the  site  was  let  to  a  contractor,  who  seems 
to  have  run  up  small  houses  upon  it.  Early  in  the  same 
century  the  court  books  lament  over  the  stopped-up  sewers, 
dilapidated  houses,  and  defaulting  tenants  of  the  estate 
covered  by  the  donation  of  Simon  FitzMary.  In  the  two 
succeeding  centuries  the  periodical  "  views,"  or  surveys,  of 
the  estate  in  like  manner  suggest  a  grimy  labyrinth  of 
alleys,  courts,  and  lanes  inhabited  by  flax  dressers,  turners, 
shoemakers,  and  other  mechanics.   .  In    1752,  however,   the 


368     THE   STORY   OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

governors  appear  to  have  improved  the  character  of  the  prin- 
cipal street  on  this  estate.  This  was  "  Bethlem  Street,"  or 
"  Old  Bethlem  "  (now  Liverpool  Street),  which  represents  the 
ancient  path  or  road  from  Bishopsgate  Street  through  or  by 
the  convent  quadrangle  and  over  a  bridge  into  Moorfields. 
Ruinous  houses  were  pulled  down  and  replaced  by  houses 
which  merchants  and  shopkeepers  were  glad  to  occupy. 
At  the  same  time  the  entrance  to  the  street  was  widened 
at  the  Bishopsgate  end.  Towards  the  close  of  the  century, 
Finsbury  Circus  and  Broad  Street  attracted  the  doctors  as 
Harley  Street  does  to-day,  and  I  gather  that  Bethlem  Street, 
if  it  did  not  become  residential,  had  good  commercial 
tenants.  In  a  directory  of  1817,  for  example,  I  find  that 
the  two  hundred  and  seventy-five  yards  of  the  street  in- 
cluded a  bedstead  manufacturer,  a  brush  maker,  a  dyer, 
and  other  people  of  that  class. 

In  1825  the  Commissioners  of  Sewers  were  allowed  to 
efface  the  historical  name  of  Bethlem,  and  our  committee 
heard  with  some  annoyance  on  2nd  March  that  the  old 
name  had  been  replaced  by  Liverpool  Street  without  any 
reference  to  them.  Protest  was  futile,  but  the  committee 
ordered  that  the  words  "  late  Bethlem  Street "  should  be 
affixed  to  the  two  corner  houses.  The  new  title  was  meant 
to  be  a  compliment  to  the  Prime  Minister,  Lord  Liverpool. 
The  hospital  parted  with  all  that  was  left  of  FitzMary's 
orchards  and  gardens  on  6th  November,  1870,  when  the 
governors  sold  to  the  Great  Eastern  Railway  Company  and 
the  Metropolitan  Railway  Company  premises  indicated  on 
the  accompanying  plan  (pp.  360,  361). 

One,  and  one  estate  only,  is  still  in  the  possession  of 
the  hospital,  as  it  was  as  early  as  1330.  This  is  the  Staple 
Hall  of  the  Middle  Ages,  the  Campions'  house  in  Jacobean 
times,  and  to-day  part  of  the  Devonshire  House  property 
of  the  Society  of  Friends.  In  the  'thirties  of  the  eighteenth 
century  it  was  called  Magpie  Alley,  and  the  "Magpie" 
tavern  was  a  tied  house  in  the  hands  of  old  Thrale,  the 
father  of  Dr.  Johnson's  friend.  It  has  been  a  pleasure  to 
me   to   beat   the   bounds   of  this   historic   property    in   the 


CHAPEL  AND  CHAPLAIN 


369 


company  of  Mr.  Norman  Penny,  the  librarian  of  the  Friends' 
Library,  and  an  antiquary  like  myself  I  hope  that 
Bethlehem  Hospital  will  never  break  the  last  link  which 
binds  her  to  the  home  where  she  was  born,  but  if  the  site 
of  Staple  Hall  is  ever  to  be  sold  or  bartered,  I  hope  that 
it  may  pass  into  the  care  of  the  Friends,  from  whom  we 
and  others  learnt  to  treat  the  irrational  as  rational  beings, 
and  to  overcome  evil  with  good. 

Three  years   ago — towards    the   close   of  the   autumn — I 
began  to  write  this  book,  and   I   am  writing  the  last  para- 


00      f>Q      70       At      sp      to       sa      t»^      />» S 

-Til     I     I     I     I     r    I     iiMiiiMii 


'J^Sf^  V^^jr 


& 


XT 


'jJie^iek-ac  Tnagpye  aieX>>^e. 


i_r 


I 


^taii  fs^f. 


AN   EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY   SURVEY   OF   OUR   DEVONSHIRE   HOUSE   ESTATE   IN 

BISHOPSGATE. 


graphs  this  fine  September  day  in  191 3.  I  am  sitting  in 
the  chaplain's  room  in  M.  4,  surrounded  by  portfolios  of 
illustrations  and  the  brown-paper  bags,  in  which  I  stored 
the  memoranda  and  transcripts  destined  to  feed  each 
chapter.  Far  below  my  window  is  the  glorious  jungle  of 
flowers,  which  has  replaced  a  grim  corrugated  iron  verandah 
— symbol  of  so  many  a  transformation  in  this  home  of  ours. 
My  staider  parishioners  are  playing  bowls  with  sober  zest 
on  the  grass  :  the  most  active  and  skilful  are  cutting  viciously 
at  the  lawn  tennis  balls  :  the  sorrowful  and  listless  are 
sitting  in  the  shelters,  or  moodily  pacing  the  gravel  paths 

/  25 


370     THE   STORY    OF  BETHLEHEM  HOSPITAL 

between  the  shrubs,  hearing  a  voice  which  others  cannot 
hear,  and  seeing  visions  which  are  only  vouchsafed  to 
insanity  and  genius.  How  many  a  man  is  sauntering 
underneath  the  high  wall  who  might  have  been  a  Blake 
or  a  Swedenborg,  had  not  his  lot  forbade ! 

Perhaps  I  have  undertaken  a  task  too  great  for  my 
powers,  for  more  than  six  centuries  and  a  half  frown  in- 
dignantly upon  my  daring  enterprise,  but  at  any  rate — 
in  spite  of  limitations  of  temperament  and  training — I  have 
essayed  to  tell  the  story  of  Bethlehem  Hospital  from  its 
foundation  in  1247.  What  I  had  to  give,  I  have  given, 
and  given  ungrudgingly. 

I  have  told  my  story  frankly,  not  disguising  how  slowly 
humanity  grew  up  in  our  wards,  nor  how  coldly  the  spirit 
of  progress  was  welcomed  in  a  progressive  age.  I  am  not 
even  here  to  say  that  we  have  yet  resumed  the  place,  to 
which  our  history  and  bur  resources  entitle  us,  at  the  head 
of  those  who  have  the  spirit  of  devotion  and  the  material 
and  moral  equipment  necessary  for  work  so  delicate  as  ours. 
This  I  can  say,  that  the  star  of  Bethlehem  has  emerged 
from  the  clouds  that  so  often  dimmed  its  brilliancy,  and 
that  the  sky  is  now  clear  and  blue  around  it.  May  its 
rays  for  ever  guide  many  sufferers  to  where  peace  and 
hope  and  courage  may  be  vouchsafed  to  them !  , 


APPENDIXES 
A 

QUALIFICATION   OF   GOVERNORSHIP 

A  benefaction  to  the  hospitals  (Bridewell  and  Bethlem),  or    to 
one  of  them,  of  ^50  at  the  least. 

\ 

B 

FORM   OF   BEQUEST 

I  give  and  bequeath  to  Bethlehem  Royal  Hospital,  London,  the 
sum  of  jQ ,  free  of  legacy  duty. 

c 

PRESENT    STAFF     OF     BETHLEHEM    HOSPITAL 

Resident  Physician  and  Medical  Superintendent. 
William  Henry  Butter  Stoddart,   M.D.  (Lond.),  F.R.C.P.     Joined 
the  staff  1898. 

Assistant  Medical  Officers. 
John    George    Porter    Philhps,    M.D.    (Lond.),   B.S.,    M.R.C.P., 

M.R.C.S.     Joined  the  staff  1907. 
Ralph    Brown,   M.D.  (Lond.),   B.S.,   L.R.C.P.,   M.R.C.S.     Joined 

the  staff  191 1. 

Pathologist. 

Clement  Lovell,  M.D.  (Lond.). 

371 


in 


Consultants. 
Surgeon. — Arthur  Evans,  M.D.  (Lond.),  F.R.C.S. 
AncESthetist. — Cecil  Hughes,  M.B.,  B.S.  (Lond.). 
Aurist    and    Laryngologist. — W.    Mayhew    Mollison,    M.A.,    M.C. 

(Camb.),  F.R.C.S. 
Ophthalmologist. — J.  Francis  Cunningham,  F.R.C.S. 
GyncEcologist. — Thomas  G.  Stevens,  M.D.  (Lond.),  F.R.C.S. 
Dental  Surgeon. — Frederick  Todd,  M.R.C.S.,  L.D.S. 

Chaplain. 
Edward  Geoffrey  O'Donoghue,  B.A.  (Oxon.).   Joined  the  staff  1892. 

Steward. 
Arthur  Henry  Martin,  Colonel  A.S.C.  (Territorial  Force).     Joined 
the  staff  1889. 

Matron. 
Gladys  S.  Bettinson. 

Head  Attendant. 
Ernest  Gordon   Clark. 


Clerk  and  Receiver. 
John  Lade  Worsfold.     Joined  the  staff  1894. 


MEDICAL   STAFF   FROM    1619. 

Physician  and  Keeper. 
Hilkiah  Crooke  ...         ...         ...         1 619-1634 


Non-resident  Physicians. 
Othowell  Meverall 
Thomas  Nurse 
Thomas  Allen 
Edward  Tyson 
Richard  Hale 
James  Monro 
John  Monro 
Thomas  Monro 
Edward  Thomas  Monro 
George  Leman  Tuthill  .. 
Edward  Thomas  Monro 
Alexander  Morison 


I 634-1 648 
1648-1667 
1667-1684 
1684-1708 
1708-1728 
1728-1752 
1752-1792 
1792-1816 

1816-1853  \      r  '   4J 

o  ^    o      \  Jointly 
I8I6-I835  )  -^ 

1816-1853    \      r    ■    .1 

o  o       \  Jointly 


APPENDIXES 


373 


Resident  Physicians. 

William  Charles  Hood 

1852-1862 

William  Helps    ... 

1862-1865 

W.  Rhys  Williams         

1865-1878 

George  H.  Savage         

1878-1888 

Robert  Percy  Smith 

1888-1898 

Theophilus  B.  Hyslop  ... 

1898-1910 

Surgeons. 

Samuel  Sambrooke 

1634-1643 

John  Meredith 

1643-1656 

Edmund  Higgs  ... 

1656-1669 

Jeremy  Higgs     

1669-1693 

Christopher  Talman 

1693-1708 

Richard  Blackstone 

1708-1714 

John  Wheeler     ... 

1714-1741 

Charles  Wheeler... 

1741-1761 

Henry  Wentworth 

1761-1769 

Richard  Crowther 

1769-1789 

Bryan  Crowther ... 

1789-1815 

William  Lawrence 

1816-1867 

"  Apothecaries." 

Ralph  Yardley 

?i634-i656 

James  James 

1656-1678 

Jeremy  Lester     ... 

1678-1685 

John  PeUing       ...         ... 

1685-1689 

Wm.  Dickenson ...         ... 

1689-1695 

John  Adams 

1695-1715 

Wm.  Elderton 

1715-1751 

John  Winder 

1751-1772 

John  Gozna 

1772-1795 

John  Haslam      ...          ...         ... 

1795-1816 

George  Wallett 

1816-1819 

Edward  Wright  ... 

1819-1830 

John  Thomas 

1830-1845 

William  Wood    ... 

1845-1852 

WiUiam  Helps    ... 

1852-1862 

W.  Rhys  Williams 

1862-1866 

374 


APPENDIXES 


Assistant  Medical  Officers. 


Henry  Law  Kempthorne 

Henry  Rayner    ... 

Geo.  Henry  Savage 

W.  E.  Ramsden  Wood... 

Robert  Percy  Smith 

Theophilus  Bulkeley  Hyslop 

Maurice  Craig    ... 

William  Henry  Butter  Stoddart 


1866-1870 
1870-1872 
1872-1878 
1878-1885 
1885-1888 
1888-1898 
1898-1908 
1908-1911 


Second  Assistant  Medical  Officers. 

Harry  Corner      ...         ...         ...  1891-1894 

Maurice  Craig 1894-1898 

William  Henry  Butter  Stoddart...  1 898-1 908 

J.  G.  Porter  Phillips       ...         ...  1908-1911 


INCREASE   OF   INSANITY 

I  am  often  asked  whether  insanity  is  not  increasing  at  an 
alarming  rate.  Experts  differ  in  their  estimates,  but  I  will  quote 
the  tenor  of  the  conclusions  reached  by  my  friend,  Dr.  R.  H.  Cole, 
in  his  "  Mental  Diseases  "  (Hodder  and  Stoughton),  inasmuch  as 
they  are  generally  in  accord  with  the  conservative  views  of  the 
Lunacy  Commissioners. 

The  figures  are  available  to  everybody  in  the  sixty-fifth  Report 
of  the  Commissioners,  and  there  is  no  reason  to  question  their 
accuracy.  In  191T  the  number  of  the  certified  insane  reached 
133,157,  and  these  numbers  would  be  very  largely  increased  if 
we  were  in  a  position  to  add  the  figures  (which  have  never  been 
tabulated)  for  the  uncertified  insane  and  for  the  uncertified  mentally 
defective.  On  an  analysis  of  the  returns  of  the  certified  insane  for 
191 1  we  have  to  admit  that,  while  the  general  population  increased 
at  a  rate  of  io|  per  cent,  in  the  decade  1901-11,  the  increase 
of  the  certified  insane  in  the  same  period  was  no  less  than  23J 
per  cent.,  or  more  than  double.  The  rate  of  increase  is  an  un- 
deniable fact,  but  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  growing 
accumulation   of    incurable   cases,    and   for    the   tendency   of  the 


APPENDIXES  375 

poorer  classes  to  send  mild  cases  and  cases  of  senility  to  asylums 
instead  of  putting  up  with  them  at  home.  Ninety  per  cent,  of 
the  certified  insane — this  is  a  pivotal  fact — belong  to  the  pauper 
class. 

In  any  case  (for  Dr.  Cole  is  optimistic)  there  are  still  left  267 
sane  persons  to  every  one  who  is  insane  ! 

Some  further  statistics  may  be  quoted  from  the  same  source. 
The  recovery  rate  is  33  per  cent,  of  the  admission  rate,  but  of 
the  patients  discharged  at  least  one-third  relapse  at  one  time  or 
another.  Indeed  the  recovery  rate,  in  spite  of  modern  methods 
and  comfortable   surroundings,  shows  very  little  tendency  to  rise. 


BOOKS    WRITTEN    BY   CONVALESCENT    PATIENTS 
ABOUT   THEIR   OWN    CASES 

"A  Mind  that  Found  Itself,"  Clifford  W.  Beers  (an   American), 

1908.     Published  by  Macmillan. 
"  The  Maniac,"  Anonymous,  1909.     PubHshed  by  Rebman. 


NOTES 


CHAPTER   I 

PAGE     LINE 

I  17  The  story  of  John  the  Roman  and  of  the  other  actors  in  the 
scenes  of  this  chapter  may  be  read  in  "  The  Registers  of 
Innocent  IV,"  by  E.  Berger,  1877.  See  Nos.  757,  958, 
980,  1066,  1079,  1531,  1532,  1533,  2025,  2057,  3742,  3851, 
4043,  4044.  The  transcriptions  of  the  papal  registexs  will 
be  found  in  the  British  Museum  catalogues  under  the 
names  of  the  popes,  or  under  "Academies" — "  Bibliotheque 
des  ecoles  fran9aises  d'Athenes  et  de  Rome." 

4  I  M.  PariSj  "Chron.  Maj.,"  ed.  H.  R.  Luard,  1877,  vol.  iv. 
pp.  590,  602,  640,  644, 

4  23     "  Archaeological  Researches  in  Western   Palestine,"  C.  Cler- 

mont-Ganneau,  vol.  ii.  p.  152. 

5  8     The  cartulary  of  Holy  Trinity  ("Liber  Trinitatis")  may  be 

consulted  at  the  Guildhall  in  four  manuscript  volumes, 
MSS.  catalogue.  No.  122.  For  entry  concerning  FitzMary, 
cf .  vol.  ii.  fol.  886.  The  earliest  lists  of  aldermen  form  one 
of  the  appendixes  to  Sir  W.  Besant's  "  London  "  (Mediaeval 
London — H  istorical). 

5  12  For  metronymics,  cf.  "  Family  Names,"  Rev.  S.  Baring-Gould, 
1910  :  "  Enghsh  Surnames,"  C.  W.  Bardsley,  1875. 

5  26  "  History  of  London,"  2  vols.,  vol.  i.  ch.  v.  p.  132,  Rev.  W.  J. 
Loftie.  1883. 

377 


378  NOTES 

CHAPTER   II 

In  compiling  this  chapter  I  have  studied  very  many  books, 
some  of  which  may  be  named  : — 

"  Etudes  sur  I'histoire  de  I'eghse  de  BethLeem,"  Comte 
P.  Riant  and  C.  Kohler,  1889  :  "  Histoire  de  I'eveche  de 
Bethleem,"  Louis  Lagenissiere,  1872  :  "  Les  hospitaliers  en 
Terre  sainte,"  J.  Delaville  le  Roulx,  1904  :  "  The  Hospital 
of  St.  Germains  in  East  Lothian  and  the  Bethlemites,"  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  Society  of  Antiquaries  of  Scotland  (1910-11), 
vol.  xlv.  p.  371  (the  author  of  this  illuminating  paper,  to 
which  I  am  indebted  in  many  ways,  is  Mr,  Egerton 
Beck,  F.S.A.)  :  "  Military  Religious  Orders,"  Rev.  F.  C. 
Woodhouse,  1879. 


PAGE     LINE 

6  7  The  Byzantine  Research  Fund  issued  in  1910  an  exhaustive 
and  lucid  narrative,  "  The  Church  of  the  Nativity,  Beth- 
lehem." The  interesting  letterpress  has  been  written  by 
Wm.  Harvey  and  other  authorities.  I  have  to  thank  the 
"Fund"  for  allowing  me  to  reproduce  some  of  the 
illustrations. 

10  30    The  number  of  rays  in  the  heraldic  star  of  Bethlehem  appears 

to  have  varied.  Matthew  Paris  gives  us  a  star  of  five  rays, 
Riant  reproduces  from  the  arms  of  a  convent  a  star  of 
seven  rays,  and  the  hospital  star  boasts  no  less  than 
sixteen. 

11  8     See  ch.  v. 

13  9  For  many  years  I  hoped  to  find  some  association  of  the 
mother-house  at  Bethlehem  with  the  care  of  the  insane. 
My  search  has  been  without  success,  but  I  may  note  that  in 
his  "  Lives  of  the  Saints  "  under  nth  January  Alban  Butler 
relates  how  Theodosius,  the  Coenobiarch,  built  a  spacious 
monastery  at  a  place  called  "  Kathismus,"  four  or  five  miles 
east  of  Bethlehem,  and  that  it  was  soon  filled  with  holy 
monks.  To  this  monastery  were  annexed  three  infirmaries. 
One,  for  the  sick,  was  the  gift  of  a  pious  lady.  He  built 
the  other  two  himself — one  for  the  aged  and  feeble,  and 
the  other  "  for  such  as  had  been  punished  with  the  loss  of 
their  senses  or  by  falling  under  the  power  of  the  devil. 
Every  kind  of  succour,  spiritual  and  temporal,  was  em- 
ployed in  the  service  of  those  in  the  infirmaries."    There 


NOTES  379 

PAGE     LINE 

were  four  churches — one  for  "  convalescent  lunatics,  who 
were  considered  in  a  state  of  penance  and  detained  till 
they  had  expiated  their  fault." 

I  may  comment  on  the  narrative  so  far  as  to  explain  that 
what  in  this  and  other  monastic  documents  is  described 
and  punished  as  spiritual  pride  was  really  the  exaltation  of 
acute  or  delusional  mania. 

13  27     Piers   Plowman,   Text   B,  pass.   xv.    11.  538    and    foil.  :    ed. 

W.  W.  Skeat,  1886. 

"A  peril  to  the  pope  and  prelates  that  he  maketh,  that 
bear  bishops'  names  of  Bedleem  and  Babiloigne,  that 
hop  about  in  England  to  hallow  men's  altars,  and  creep 
about  among  the  clergy,  hearing  confessions,  which  they 
have  no  right  to  do." 

Two  bishops  of  Bethlehem  were  Englishmen:  Ralph  (1156- 
1174)  and  Wilham  of  Bottisham  (1384),  a  Dominican,  who 
was  translated  to  Llandaff  in  the  following  year. 

14  24     For  the  appeal  of  Welles,  see  ch.  vii. 

15  14    A   military   order    of  the    star   of    Bethlehem   was    actually 

founded  in  1459  by  Pius  II,  but  it  was  suppressed  when 
the  Turks  took  Lemnos.  An  order  of  Bethlemite  hospi- 
tallers was  founded  in  Guatemala  in  i66o. 


CHAPTER   III 

3  St.  Paul  seems  to  have  suffered  from  mental  depression  : 
cf .  2  Cor.  i.  :  the  "  thorn  in  the  flesh "  has  also  been 
interpreted  as  epileptic  seizures. 

6  The  atmosphere  here  and  elsewhere  is  derived  from 
"Memorials  of  London  and  London  Life,"  H.  T.  Riley, 
1868,  or  from  Sir  W.  Besant's  books  on  London. 

13  Matthew  Paris  was  present  himself,  and  afterwards  dined 
with  the  king.  The  picture  will  be  found  in  a  manuscript 
at  C.C.C,  Cambridge. 

21  The  allusions  in  the  descriptions  are  based  on  the  "  Rituale 
Romanum,"  which  Father  Hendriks,  of  Eastwell,  Melton 
Mowbray,  was  good  enough  to  lend  me. 


380  NOTES 

PAGE     LINE 

17  II  It  appears  from  Riley  that  a  dispute  took  place  14th  Sep- 
tember, 1289,  between  the  bishop  of  Bethlehem  and  one 
of  the  citizens,  William  Poyntel,  about  the  cutting  of 
"  reeds,  which  were  growing  upon  that  part  of  the 
meadow  land  which  remained  over  and  above  the  tenement 
of  the  bishop  of  Bedlem." 

17     19     Dunning's    Alley    was     approximately    opposite    to    Union 
Street  (now  Brushfield  Street)  in  Bishopsgate  Without. 

19  I  See  chapter  on  "Roman  London"  in  the  "Victoria  History 
of  London,"  vol.  i.,  ed.  W.  Page,  1909. 

19  15  The  deed  poll  will  be  found  at  the  Record  Office  under 
"  Visitation  of  St.  Mary  of  Bethlehem,  A. D.  1403  " — Chancery 
Miscellaneous  Rolls,  bundle  21,  no.  5. 

22  8  The  names  of  some  of  the  witnesses  to  the  benefaction  of 
FitzMary  receive  notice  in  the  chronicles  and  Letter-books 
of  the  city.  Ralph  Sperlynges,  for  example,  was  an  alder- 
man of  East  Cheap  ;  Alexander  of  Shoreditch,  an  iron- 
monger, succeeded  FitzMary  in  the  aldermanry,  apparently 
of  Walbrook  ;  so  far  I  have  been  unable  to  find  what 
jusciof  stands  for.  Somebody  at  the  Record  Office  sug- 
gested jouster.  But  if  the  reading  ought  to  be  fusciof,  we 
might  describe  John  as  a  maker  of  saddlery. 


/  CHAPTER   IV 

26  8  Among  the  original  authorities  for  the  life  and  policy  of 
Simon  FitzMary  may  be  mentioned  :  Robert  Fabyan 
(ed.  H.  Ellis)  :  "The  New  Chronicles,"  i8ri  :  "Chronicles," 
Arnald  FitzThedmar,  ed.  H.  T.  Riley,  1863. 

26  25  Cf.  "  Feet  of  Fines,"  London  and  Middlesex  (printed), 
32  Hen.  III.,  vol.  i.  no.  275.  Pipe  Rolls  MSS.  No.  in,  at 
Guildhall  Library. 

30  6  Margery  Vyell  was  the  widow  of  a  citizen  named  John 
Vyell,  who,  at  his  marriage,  had  made  a  settlement  on 
her,  and  died  the  owner  of  a  considerable  property.  She 
claimed  in  1246  to  be  entitled  to  a  third  of  her  deceased 
husband's  goods,  as  his  widow;  but  the  city  authorities, 
sitting    at    Guildhall,  gave   judgment  against  her,  on  the 


NOTES  3B1 

PAGfe     LINE 

grounds  that  her  settlement  was  sufficient,  and  that  her 
husband  had  made  no  further  provision  for  her  in  his  will. 
The  widow  Vyell  was  by  no  means  content,  and  appealed 
to  the  king.  The  king  was  anxious  to  humble  the  citizens, 
and  Simon  FitzMary  played  the  king's  game  by  opposing 
the  election  of  Nicholas  Bat  as  sheriff.  Henry  had  on 
more  than  one  occasion  taken  the  city  into  his  hands,  as  it 
was  termed,  appointing  the  mayor,  however,  to  govern  it 
for  him.  He  now  took  a  much  more  tyrannical  step. 
He  sent  Henry  de  Bath,  a  justice,  to  St.  Martin's-le- 
Grand,  to  try  the  case  of  the  widow  Vyell,  and  on  the 
refusal  of  the  citizens  to  acknowledge  his  jurisdiction,  took 
possession  of  the  city,  and,  setting  aside  the  mayor  and  the 
sheriffs,  appointed  two  sheriffs  in  their  stead.  The  mayor 
journeyed  to  Woodstock,  and  had  an  interview  with  the 
king,  but  could  not  induce  him  to  change  his  mind.  How- 
ever, on  8th  September,  1248,  the  king  allowed  the  mayor 
and  sheriffs  to  be  reinstated  on  condition  that  the  city 
would  plead  in  the  king's  court  as  to  the  case  of  the  widow 
Margery. 


CHAPTER   V 

33  6  There  are  a  few,  and  only  a  few,  scattered  allusions  to  priors 
of  the  hospital  in  the  earlier  half  of  the  century.  For 
example,  we  read  in  the  Close  Rolls  that,  when  Walter  of 
Carlisle  owed  the  king  forty  shillings,  one  of  his  securities 
was  "  Brother  Thomas  of  Doncaster,  master  and  prior  of 
Bethlehem."  Close  Rolls,  21  Ed.  I,  m.  %d  (ist  May,  1293). 
This  same  Brother  Thomas  owed  six  marks  to  the  clerk  of 
the  king's  chancery,  but  made  default  30th  January,  1304. 
Close  Rolls,  31  Ed.  I,  m.  /\d  and  32  Ed.  I,  m.  17  and  i^d. 

33  22     Richard  de  Swanlond,  probably  brother  of  Simon  de  Swan- 

lond,  mayor  in  1327.  The  manor  of  North  Mimms,  Herts, 
was  conveyed  to  Simon  in  I3i6,and  a  chapel  in  the  church 
is  attributed  to  his  beneficence. 

34  30     William   de    Banham,   clerk,  to  be  arrested  (1324)  :  breaks 

prison  at  Corfe  (1327)  :  charged  with  robbery  (1327)  :  pro- 
tection as  proctor  (1327)  :  over  seas  with  the  king  (1329). 
Cf.  Patent  Rolls. 


382  NOTES 

PACK     LINE 

35  12  John  Geryn  appears  from  R.  R.  Sharpe's  "  City  Wills  *'  to  have 
inherited  a  brewhouse,  garden,  and  shop. 

35  13  John  Brid  (or  Bird),  according  to  H.  T.  Riley's  "  Memorials," 
furnished  the  city  with  24  swans  at  the  cost  of  £6, 
and  24  bitterns  and  herons  at  four  guineas,  for  presen- 
tation to  the  king's  table  in  1328. 

35  19     A  scholarly  book,  "Staple  Inn  :  Custom  House  :  Wool  Court: 

and  Inn  of  Chancery,"  Elijah  Williams,  1906,  will  give  the 
details  upon  which  I  have  based  my  remarks.  But  there 
is  a  large  literature  on  the  Staple.  Cf.  *'  Two  Thousand 
Years  of  Guild  Life,"  J.  M.  Lambert,  1891,  and  "  The  Gild 
Merchant,"  Ch.  Gross,  1890. 

36  26     For  the  ''  Protections,"  consult  : — 

P.  R.  31  Hen.  Ill,  m.  2  (23rd  September,  1247). 

P.  R.  41  Hen.  Ill,  m.  8  (20th  May,  1257). 

P.  R.  20  Ed.  I,  m.  22  (5th  February,  1292). 

P.  R.  20  Ed.  I,  m.  16  (15th  April,  1292). 

P.  R.  9  Ed.  II,  pt.  i.  m.  28  (15th  July,  1315). 

P.  R.  3  Ed.  Ill,  pt.  ii.  m.  19  (23rd  September,  1329). 

P.  R.  4  Ed.  Ill,  pt.  ii.  m.  29  (20th  April,  1330). 

P.  R.  5  Ed.  Ill,  pt.  i.  m.  25  (3rd  March,  1331). 

P.  R.  5  Ed.  Ill,  pt.  i.  m.  II  (28th  April,  1331). 

P.  R.  8  Ed.  Ill,  pt.  ii.  m.  25  (29th  September,  1334). 

P.  R.  10  Ed.  Ill,  pt.  ii.  m.  9  (12th  January,  1337). 

P.  R.  14  Ed.  Ill,  pt.  iii.  m.  9  (8th  December,  1340). 

P.  R.  16  Ed.  Ill,  pt.  ii.  m.  30  (23rd  June,  1342). 

P.  R.  21  Ed.  Ill,  pt.  ii.  m.  14  (i6th  July,  1347). 

P.  R.  22  Ed.  Ill,  pt.  ii.  m.  3  (26th  August,  1348). 

P.  R.  22  Ed.  Ill,  pt.  iii.  m.  38  (12th  September,  1348). 

P.  R.  30  Ed.  Ill,  pt.  ii.  m.  II  (20th  July,  1356). 

39  2     It  must   be  observed — once   and  for  all — that   there   were 

two  convents  of  St.  Mary  in  Bishopsgate  Without,  The 
epithet  "  new  "  applied  to  our  namesake  seems  to  suggest 
that  it  had  been  refounded. 

40  5     One  of  my  parishioners  has  reproduced  the  figure  of   the 

brother  of  Bethlehem  from  the  plate  in  "  Ancient  Abbeys," 
John  Stevens,  1723,  at  p.  274  in  vol.  ii. 


NOTES  383 


CHAPTER  VI 

PAGE     LINE 

44  36     For  the  wills,  in  which  legacies  were  bequeathed  to  Bethlehem 

Hospital  in  mediaeval  times,  consult  "  Calendar  of  City 
Wills,"  R.  R.  Sharpe,  1889.  Notice,  however,  that  he  has 
confounded  Bethlehem  Hospital  with  the  "  new  Hospital 
of  St.  Mary,  Bishopsgate,"  which  stood  on  the  ground 
covered  by  Spital  Square.  Other  books,  upon  which  I  have 
drawn  for  wills,  are  "  The  Fifty  Earliest  Wills  (1387- 
1439),"  F.  J.  Furnivall,  1882;  "  Testamenta  Vetusta,"  N.  H. 
Nicolas,  1826  ;  "  Excerpta  Historica,"  S.  Bentley,  183 1. 

45  16     Dr.  Magrath,  the  Provost  of  Queen's,  Oxford,  has  reproduced 

the  obituary  of  his  college,  and  with  his  permission  I  have 
copied  a  page  from  it,  and  filled  it  up  with  names  of  our 
own  benefactors. 

45  37  Among  the  Guildhall  MSS.  may  be  found  transcriptions  from 
returns  made  to  Richard  H  in  1389,  This  transcript  is 
made  from  "  Guild  Certificates,"  No.  202,  in  the  Public 
Record  Office. 

47  33  The  agreement  between  the  hospital  and  the  rector  of  St. 
Botolph's,  Bishopsgate,  may  be  found  in  the  library  of  St. 
Paul's  Cathedral,  A.  Box  6,  No.  837.  The  transcription  was 
made  for  me  by  Miss  E.  Salisbury. 

49  34  The  petition  to  Urban  V  is  noted  in  the  Calendar  of  Papal 
Petitions  (1342-1419),  ed.  W.  H.  Bliss  :  granted  at  Avignon, 
June,  1363.     Cf.  p.  423. 

51  I  The  letters  in  Norman-French  to  Roger  de  Freton  and  the 
bishop  of  Bethlehem  are  to  be  found  in  "  Letters  from  the 
Mayor  and  Corporation  (1350-1370)/'  R.  R.  Sharpe,  1885. 


CHAPTER  VH 

The  picture  in  the  text  is  an  adaptation  by  one  of  my  patients 
cf  a  mediaeval  drawing  in  J.  J.  Jusserand's  "  English  Way- 
faring Life  in  the  Middle  Ages." 


384  NOTES 

PAGE     LINE 

53  7  The  seizure  of  Bedlam  as  an  alien  priory  in  1375  by 
Edward  III  is  mentioned,  according  to  Dugdale,  in  a 
bundle  in  the  Public  Record  Office,  "  De  beneficiis  alieni- 
genorum,"  48  Ed.  III.  I  cannot  trace  it,  but  I  am  inchned 
to  suggest  that  he  had  in  his  mind  P.  R.  41  Ed.  Ill,  pt.  ii. 
m.  6d  (i6th  December,  1367). 

53  7     For   alien  priories   consult  "Alien   Priories,"  John   Nichols, 

1779. 

54  15     St.    Anthony's    priory    was    converted    into    a   "royal   free 

chapel"  after  seizure  as  an  alien  priory.  Cf.  Sir  W. 
Besant,  "  London  "  (Mediaeval — Ecclesiastical). 

55  10    The  documents  relating  to  the  contest  between  the  king  and 

the  mayor  about  the  right  of  presentation  may  be  consulted 
in  the  city  Letter-books,  the  Patent  Rolls,  and  elsewhere. 

Appointment  of  Gardyner  on  the  death  of  Norton — Letter- 
book,  H,  p.  165,  4  Rich.  II  (21st  April,  1381). 

Distraint  on  the  hospital — Letter-book,  H,  p.  343, 
13  Rich.  II  (20th  July,  1389). 

Writ  to  the  sheriffs — Letter-book,  H,  p.  338,  12  Rich.  II 
(nth  January,  1389). 

58  I     Rolls    of    Parliament,   vol.    iii.    p.   128&,   5    Rich.    II   (1382). 

Circular  desks,  British  Museum. 

59  I     For  corrodies  and  lease  to  Robt.  Baron,  who  only  lived  some 

seven  years  longer,  cf.  Patent  Rolls,  15  Rich.  II,  pt.  i, 
m.  22.  In  the  same  year  Richard  II  inspected  a  building 
lease  granted  to  Wilham  Seel,  baker,  of  a  vacant  piece  of 
ground  "  near  the  new  tenement  of  the-master  ''  with  per- 
mission to  erect  all  the  plant  of  a  bakery.  Seel  was,  no 
doubt,  the  baker  who  intruded  his  bakehouse  into  the 
cemetery,  as  we  shall  read  in  a  later  chapter.  In  one  of  these 
leases  the  measurement  is  computed  according  to  "  Poules 
f  et."  This  appears  to  be  an  allusion  to  the  length  of  old  St. 
Paul's,  seven  hundred  and  twenty  feet.     Cf.  Stow,  i.  318. 

59  16  For  everything  relating  to  the  Skinners'  Company,  consult 
"  Some  Account  of  the  Skinners'  Company,"  J.  F.  Wad- 
more,  1902.  I  am  also  indebted  to  Chas.  Knight's  "  History 
of  London,"  vol.  iv,  p.  114,  for  details  of  a  procession  of  the 
Skinners. 


NOTES  385 


CHAPTER  VIII 

PAGE     LINE 

64  10    John  of  Gaddesden  and  John  Arderne  :  cf .  "  Dictionary  of 

National  Biography." 

65  33     Stow,  ii.  76. 

66  3     "  Piers  Plowman,"  ed.  W.  W.  Skeat,  vol.  i.,  Text  C,  pass.  x. 

vv.  107-37. 

66     17    See  ch.  ix.  and  x. 
66    26    See  p.  68, 11.  1-9. 

66  29    See  ch.  xiv. 

67  10     "  Survey  of  London,"  by  J.  Stow,  ed.  C.  L.  Kingsford,  1908, 

vol.  ii.  pp.  98,  264,  379.  Other  references  to  Bethlem 
Hospital  in  Stow  are  in  vol.  i.  pp.  32,  106,  114,  164-5,  230, 
319  :  in  vol.  ii.  pp.  73,  76,  144,  155,  297-8. 

68  I     See  ch.  xx.  p.  165. 

69  38     Concerning  Robt.  Denton,  cf.  Stow,  i.  137  :  P.  R.  44  Ed.  Ill, 

pt.  ii.  m.  12  :  2  Rich.  II,  pt.  i.  m.  38. 

72  8  For  an  account  of  the  stained  glass  windows  in  the  Trinity 
chapel,  in  which  the  healing  of  insanity  is  pourtrayed, 
consult  "  Notes  on  Painted  Glass  in  Canterbury  Cathedral," 
with  a  preface  by  Dean  F.  W.  Farrar,  1897.  In  the  illus- 
trations the  figures  have  been  taken  out  of  the  leaded 
panes,  redrawn,  and  enlarged  by  Mr.  C.  Naish. 


CHAPTERS  IX  AND  X 

The  original  manuscript  of  the  "  Visitation  "  may  be  inspected 
in  the  Pubhc  Record  Offices  :  Miscellaneous  Rolls  21.5.  It 
may  also  be  found  transcribed  with  the  abbreviations  of 
the  original  Latin  on  pp.  600-7,  being  Appendix  III  to  the 
Report  of  the  Charity  Commissioners  (xxxii.  pt.  vii)  on 
Bethlem,  dated  30th  June,  1837.  I  have  translated  the 
whole  of  the  "Visitation"  into  English  in  the  hospital 
magazine  {Under  the  Dome)  for  1901  (pp.  loi  and  141) 
and  1902  (pp.  I  and  39). 

26 


386  NOTES 

In  the  course  of  the  inquiry  the  two  following  documents 
were  put  in  evidence  : — 

Grant  of  Mastership  to  Lincoln,  ''  the  same  being  vacant 
and  in  our  presentation."  P.  R.  12  Rich.  II,  pt.  i.  m.  10 
(22nd  November,  1388). 

Ratification  of  the  same,  the  king  "  being  unwilling  that 
the  said  master  should  be  harassed,  disturbed,  or  molested." 
P.  R.  I  Hen.  IV,  pt.  i.  m.  16  (25th  October,  1399). 


VKGE.     LINE 

74      4    Chaucer,  "  House  of  Fame." 

74  17  For  the  licence  granted  by  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
cf.  the  registers  of  Archbishop  Wittlesye,  fol.  536.  The 
librarian  of  the  Lambeth  Palace  library  was  so  good  as  to 
transcribe  it  for  me  from  the  original  Latin.  The  licence 
of  the  bishop  of  Salisbury  may  be  found  in  the  Manuscript 
Room  of  the  British  Museum  in  the  catalogue  of  the 
Harleian  Collection — vol.  i.  p.  461,  no.  862  (33).  Robert 
Rede,  bishop  of  Chichester,  "  of  his  special  favour,"  also 
granted  to  the  "  questor  "  of  Bethlem,  London,  a  licence  to 
collect  alms.  Preb.  Cecil  Deedes  was  so  kind  as  to  call  my 
attention  to  the  licence  on  p.  246  of  the  diocesan  registers 
under  Rede,  printed  by  the  Sussex  Record  Society. 

80  3  The  bursar  was  Master  Hamond  Brereton,  rector  of  Marwood, 
dio.  Exeter  :  he  received  licence  of  non-residence  for  one 
year,  7th  April,  1397,  and  died  1403.  Episc.  Reg.  dio. 
Exeter,  "Stafford." 

84  34  Ratification  by  Henry  IV  to  Alice  Goldsmyth  of  Lincoln  and 
Margaret,  her  daughter,  of  an  indenture  dated  in  the 
hospital  of  St.  Mary,  Bethleem,  26th  September,  i  Hen.  IV 
by  Robert  Lincoln,  the  master,  of  a  chamber  and  solar  or 
upper  room  on  the  north  side  of  the  chief  kitchen  with  a 
parcel  of  the  great  garden.  P.  R.  5  Hen.  IV,  pt.  i.  m.  26 
(i8th  November,  1403). 


CHAPTER   XI 

86      2     For  St.  Guthlac,  consult  "  Memorials  of  St.  Guthlac,"  W.  de 
G.  Birch,  1881. 


NOTES  387 

PAGE     LINE 

86     12     The   service   of   exorcism   will   be    found    in    the  "■  Rituale 
Romanum.'" 

88      3     P.  R.,  7  Hen.  IV,  pt.  ii.  m.  2()d  (24th  May,  1406). 

88  II     Rolls  of  Parliament,  vol.  iv.  pp.  19  and  80. 

89  3     Rob.  Dale  appointed  Master  ''  by   advice  of   the   council  "  : 

P.  R.  I  Hen.  VI,  pt.  v.  m.  6  (13th  July,  1423).  He 
issues  letters  testimonial  to  Simon  Baret  to  collect  alms 
for  the  hospital  in  the  archdeaconry  of  Oxford,  27th 
October,  1424.  Cf.  Ninth  Report  of  Hist.  MSS.  Com., 
pt.  i.  app.  p.  213a. 

89  I     Atherton  appointed  :  P.  R.  15  Hen.  VI,  m.  43  (i8th  March, 

1437)  with  ''writ  de  intendendo  to  the  brethren  and 
sisters  of  the  hospital."  Commission  to  mayor  and  others  : 
P.  R.  15  Hen.  VI,  m.  21^^  (8th  May,  1437).  Cf.  Harley 
Charters,  56  F.  48  for  a  bond,  by  which  Atherton  is  bound 
along  with  John  Sty  ward,  chandler,  and  John  Tate,  mercer, 
the  lessee  of  the  hospital,  in  the  sum  of  ;£5o. 

Canon  Manning,  F.S.A.,  in  some  notes  on  Diss  Church, 
Norfolk,  writes  : — "  In  the  centre  of  the  chancel  floor  is  a 
stone  that  formerly  held  a  chalice,  and  it  is  likely  that  it  is 
the  burial  place  of  a  rector,  in  whose  times  the  alterations 
were  made.  Perhaps  he  was  Edward  Atherton,  instituted 
in  1428,  who  was  clerk  of  the  closet  to  Henry  VI." 

90  12     Cf.  "Memorials  of  London,"  H.  T.  Riley,  1868.     The  extract 

is  from  the  city  Letter-book,  I,  fol.  114,  13  Hen.  IV 
(1412). 

90  21     Gower's   will,   dated   15th   August,   1408,  may  be   found    in 

"Testamenta  Vetusta,"  N.  H.  Nicolas,  1826,  vol.  ii.  p.  778  : 
also  the  will  of  Lord  Bassett  of  Drayton,  who  left  money  in 
1389  for  two  chantries  at  the  church  of  St.  Mary  Bethleem, 
and  that  of  Edward,  Lord  Hastings,  who  left  a  legacy  in 
1556  for  the  benefit  of  our  patients.  Forster's  will  is 
transcribed  in  "  Somerset  Mediaeval  Wills." 

91  10     Mr.  J.  Gairdner  has  edited  "The   Historical  Collections  of 

a  Citizen  of  London  in  the  Fifteenth  Century"  (W, 
Gregory)  for  the  Camden  Society, 


388  NOTES 

PAGE     LINE 

91  30  Arundell  was  a  fellow  of  Exeter  College,  Oxford,  between 
142 1  and  1430,  and  he  died  at  Chichester,  i8th  October, 
1477.  He  was  a  shameless  pluralist :  cf.  Rev.  G.  Hennessey's 
edition  of  Newcourt's  "  Repertorium,"  The  arms  of 
Arundell  are  still  extant,  and  show  the  hirondelles  of  the 
Sussex  family.  For  these  details  about  Arundell  and  for 
many  other  kindnesses  I  am  indebted  to  a  fellow-antiquary, 
Prebendary  Cecil  Deedes  of  Chichester. 

J  91  37  The  significant  terms,  in  which  three  physicians  (John 
Arundell,  John  Faceby,  and  William  Hatcliffe)  and  two 
surgeons  (Robt.  Warren  and  John  Marshall)  are  authorized 
to  treat  the  insane  king,  may  be  read  in  the  "  Proceedings 
of  the  Privy  Council,"  ed.  N.  H.  Nicolas,  1837,  under  the 
date  15th  March,  1455.  Cf.  also  D.N.B.  under  Arundell 
with  authorities,  and  P.  R.  35  Hen.  VI,  pt.  i.  m.  7 
(25th  February,  1457). 

94  3  For  the  will  of  Crosby  and  for  assistance  in  other  ways  I 
have  to  thank  my  friend,  Mr.  C.  F.  Goss,  the  librarian  of 
Bishopsgate  Institute,  and  the  author  of  a  very  readable 
and  scholarly  life  of  the  alderman. 

94  6  The  librarian  of  the  Bodleian,  Oxford,  writes  me  about  the 
seal,  reproduced  at  the  close  of  the  chapter  : — 

"  We  have  no  matrix  of  the  old  seal  of  the  priory  of  St. 
Mary  of  Bethlehem  at  London,  such  as  Hearne  reports  that 
Dr.  Richard  Rawlinson  procured. 

"What  we  have  is  an  engraved  copper-plate  made  for 
Dr.  Rawlinson,  presumably  from  a  seal  of  the  priory  which 
he  had  seen,  or  from  the  original  matrix  he  is  said  to  have 
possessed.  And  from  this  copper-plate  we  have  two 
impressions:  (i)  an  incorrect  one  with  'Sigillu  antiquu,' 
etc.,  and  (2)  a  corrected  one  with  '  Sigillii  comune,'  the 
copper-plate  showing  evident  signs  of  it  having  been 
altered  to  'comune.' 

"If  Dr.  Rawlinson  had  really  procured  an  old  matrix  he 
might,  I  suppose,  have  had  it  copied  on  copper-plate  for 
printing  purposes.  But,  as  I  say,  we  have  neither  the 
matrix  nor  an  original  seal,  but  only  a  copper-plate  and 
impressions  printed  from  it." 


NOTES  389 


CHAPTER  XII 

PAGE     LINE 

96  7  For  Hervey,  cf.  Patent  Rolls,  37  Hen.  VI,  pt.  i.  m.  3  (6th  May, 
1459).  For  John  Brown,  P.  R.  37  Hen.  VI,  pt.  i.  m.  3 
(14th  June,  1459).  For  Snethe  (or  Smeethe)  P.  R.  49 
Hen.  VI,  m.  14  (i8th  December,  1470). 

q6  20  John  Davyson,  "  king's  clerk,"  is  mentioned  in  the  Patent 
Rolls  between  1467,  when  he  was  a  clerk  in  chancery,  and 
1479,  when  he  received  a  "general  pardon."  He  died  in 
1485,  according  to  an  entry  in  the  bishop  of  London's 
registers  (Kempe,  142)  quoted  by  Rev.  G.  Hennessey  in 
his  edition  of  Newcourt. 

96  24     For  Bate  and   Hobbs,  P.  R.  19  Ed.  IV,  m.  17  (4th  Novem- 

ber, 1479).     A  William  Hobbys  was  the  king's  physician 
in  1485. 

97  I     For  Maudesley,  P.  R.   i   Hen.  VII,  pt.  i.  m.  10   (20th  Sep- 

tember, 1485):  Rolls  of  Parliament,  vol.  vi.  p.  372a  (1485). 

97  10  Thomas  Deynman,  P.  R.  9  Hen.  VII,  pt.  i.  m.  33  (27th 
June,  1494). 

97  24  The  items  relating  to  ist  June  and  ist  December,  1495,  will 
be  found  under  p.  103  of  Bentley's  "  Excerpta  Historica," 
1831. 

97  34  See  Sir  W.  Besant's  *'  London  "  (Tudor  period)  for  incidents 
narrated. 

99  33  For  the  Cavalari  black-letter  broadsheet,  see  British  Museum 
catalogue  under  "  Bethlehem  Hospital." 


CHAPTER   XIII 

106  6  Cavalari  was  appointed  warden  27th  March,  15 12  (Letters 
and  Papers,  3  Hen.  VIII,  pt.  iii.  m.  10),  and  master 
nth  June,  1513  (5  Hen.  VIII,  pt.  i.  m.  16).  So  far  as  I 
know,  there  was  no  difference  between  a  warden  and  a 
master.  For  a  record  of  the  dealings  of  the  Cavalari 
family  with  Henry  VIII,  cf.  Letters  and  Papers  (1510-1517). 
In  1518  a  petition  is  presented  on  account  of  an  act  of 
immorality  against  one  "John  Cavalari,"  but  I  cannot 
identify  him  for  certain.  I 


390  NOTES 

PAGE     LIXE 

io6  26  Sir  Thomas  More,  "The  Four  Last  Things":  ed.  D. 
O'Connor,  1903.  Also  his  "Apology,"  1533,  in  ^"^  edition 
of  his  "Works,"  published  in  1557,  p.  9016,  vol.  ii. 

109  3  "Why  come  ye  nat  to  Courte?"  Jno.  Skelton,  1522:  ed. 
Dyce,  ii.  p.  26. 

109  17  "Appointment  of  Boleyn,  squire  of  the  body,  to  be  governor," 
cf.  L.  and  P.  Hen.  VIII,  vol.  iv.  pt.  iii.  p.  2598  (27th 
July,  1529) ;  cf.  L.  and  P.,  vol.  x.  878  (p.  363)  and  880 
(p.  366). 

109  24  Towards  the  close  of  Boleyn's  mastership — in  1535 — Thomas 
Corthope,  curate  of  Harwich,  preached  a  violent  sermon 
against  the  Reformation  in  the  chapel  of  Bethlehem 
Hospital.  In  the  course  of  it  he  remarked  that  "these 
new  preachers  nowadays  that  do  preach  their  three 
sermons  in  a  day  have  made  and  brought  in  such 
divisions  and  seditions  as  never  was  seen  in  this  realm, 
for  the  devil  reigneth  over  us  now"  (L.  and  P.,  vol.  ix. 
1059)- 

no  20  For  John  Mewtys,  cf.  Stow,  i.  152:  ii.  240,  and  295.  For 
Peter  Mewtys,  cf.  Letters  and  Papers  of  Henry  VIII  from 
2nd  October,  1536,  onward. 

no  31  For  all  documents  relating  to  the  transfer  of  Bethlehem 
Hospital  to  the  city  as  well  as  to  many  other  events  in  the 
evolution  of  the  royal  hospitals,  consult  at  the  Guildhall,  or 
in  the  British  Museum,  "  Memoranda  Relating  to  the 
Royal  Hospitals,"  1836,  with  a  supplement  of  1863. 

112  24     For  Bowes  consult  "Memorials  of  Goldsmiths'  Company," 

W.  Prideaux,  1896 :  also  Stow. 

113  3     The  charter  of    Henry  VIII  may  be  seen  in  Patent  Rolls, 

38  Hen.  VIII,  pt.  V.  m.  53.     Also  cf.   L.  and  P.,  vol.  xxi. 
pt.  ii.  g.  771  (14,  p.  416). 


CHAPTER   XIV 

114       4     This  lease  will  be  found  at  length  in  the  hospital  magazine 
for  December,  1913. 


\ 


PAGE     LINE 


NOTES  391 


115  3  It  appears  from  the  Letters  and  Papers  of  Henry  VIII  under 
27th  May,  153 1,  that  the  king's  surveyors  were  ordered  to 
pull  down  the  "  Mews  beside  Charing  Cross,"  in  order  that 
the  old  stone,  chalk,  and  flint,  with  which  they  were  built, 
might  be  used  up  in  the  building  of  St.  James's  Palace. 
The  Mews  would  seem  to  have  been  demolished,  wholly 
or  in  part,  by  April,  1532.  But  a  fire  burnt  down  the 
royal  stables  at  Bloomsbury,  as  Stow  tells  us,  on  26th 
August,  1534,  and  the  Mews  must  have  been  rebuilt  to 
receive  the  horses  transferred  to  Charing  Cross  after  that 
date. 

115  5  Various  custodians  of  the  Mews,  who  were  also  farriers, 
yeomen  of  the  stables,  and  the  Uke,  are  mentioned  in  the 
Letters  and  Papers  of  Hen.  VIII,  e.g.,  Thomas  Wilson 
(1527)  and  our  Thomas  Wood  (1533). 

115     17     P.  R.  O.  Miscell.  Bks.,  vol.  223,  fol.  120. 

115     38     P.  R.  3  and  4  Phil,  and  Mary,  pt.  vh.  m.  5. 

117  17  A  copy  of  Wood's  will  is  preserved  at  Bridewell.  I  propose 
to  insert  a  transcript  of  it  in  our  Under  the  Dome  for  June, 
1914.  Succeeding  issues  of  the  magazine  will  contain 
copies  of  other  documents  occurring  in  this  chapter. 

117  29     For  the  burial  of  Wood  and  other  events  in  his  life  and  in  the 

lives  of  other  tenants  of  ours  at  Charing  Cross,  cf.  "  The 
Accounts  of  the  Churchwardens  of  St.  Martin's-in-the- 
Fields  for  1525  1603,"  ed.  J.  V.  Kitto,  1901. 

118  19     P.  R.  10  Eliz.,  pt.  vi.  m.  i. 

1 18  24     P.  R.  6  James  I,  pt.  ix.  no.  9. 

119  5     In  the   fire-proof   room   at  Bridewell    Hospital,   where   the 

archives  of  Bethlem  also  find  sanctuary,  various  documents 
relating  to  this  lawsuit  and  other  lawsuits  will  be  found. 
One  is  a  copy  of  an  examination  held  15th  October,  43 
Eliz.  [1601],  and  of  depositions  taken  8th  June,  44  Eliz. 
[1602],  in  the  Star  Chamber.  It  appears  from  a  certificate 
annexed,  as  well  as  from  various  entries  in  the  court  books, 
that  these  documents  were  extracted  from  the  records  of 
the  courts  of  law  14th  November,  5  James  I  [1607],  in 
connection  with  a  lawsuit  between  two  of  our  tenants  at 
Charing  Cross.     Another  document,  which  I  have  printed 


392  NOTES 


PAGE     LINE 


in  our  magazine  under  March,  1914,  appears  to  be  a  brief 
drawn  up  for  our  counsel  in  1648.  The  local  and 
picturesque  touches  which  I  have  introduced  into  my 
description  of  "  Trafalgar  Square  "  are  derived  from  these 
documents. 

1 19  34    The  sign  of  the  "  Chequers "  appears  to   be  as  old  as  the 

taverns  of  Pompeii,  nor  does  there  appear  to  be  any 
evidence  to  associate  it  with  the  earl  of  Warrenne  and 
Surrey  in  the  reign  of  Edward  IV.  In  any  case,  however, 
the  "  Chequer "  was  the  name  of  the  only  inn  at  Charing 
from  the  reign  of  Edward  VI.  The  "Chequer"  inn 
appears  to  have  changed  its  name  to  the  "  Coach  and 
Horses"  about  1716,  but  under  date  of  1732  on  an 
endorsement  attached  to  the  Star  Chamber  documents  at 
Bridewell  it  is  described  as  the  "  Bell "  inn.  Now  it  is 
a  curious  coincidence — if  nothing  more — that  the  sign  of 
the  inn  in  the  first  plate  of  the  "■  Harlot's  Progress  "  (1734) 
is  indicated  not  only  by  a  bell,  but  also  by  the  addition 
of  chequers. 

120  I     I    have     consulted — for    my    reproduction    of     "Trafalgar 

Square" — all  plans  available  in  the  Print  Room  of  the 
British  Museum,  at  Bridewell,  and  elsewhere.  I  have,  there- 
fore, supposed  Northumberland  House  to  cover  the  site  of 
Northumberland  Avenue,  and  St.  Martin's  Lane  to  issue 
at  no  great  distance  from,  say,  the  "Grand  Hotel,"  or  a 
little  to  the  westward  of  it.  Undoubtedly  the  equestrian 
statue  of  Charles  I  occupies  the  site  of  the  Eleanor  Cross, 
pulled  down  by  the  order  of  parliament  in  1647  :  just 
behind  this  cross  was,  I  imagine,  the  vacant  strip  of  land 
on  the  west  which  we  lost  in  the  sixteenth  century.  The 
island  refuges,  right  and  left  of  the  equestrian  statue  to-day, 
approximately  indicate,  to  my  thinking,  the  earliest  line  of 
the  frontage  of  our  houses  at  Charing  Cross. 


CHAPTER  XV 

123  7  The  "  Repertories"  and  "Journals"  of  the  corporation  and  the 
court  books  of  the  royal  hospitals  will  furnish  the  student 
with  original  materials  for  tracing  the  evolution  of  their 
present  form  of  government.  Also  consult  a  rare  little 
black-letter  book — to    be  seen   at  the  Guildhall  and   else- 


NOTES  393 

PAGE     LINE 

where — "An  Order  of  the  Royal  Hospitals,"  1557.  An 
admirable  summary  of  the  various  stages  in  the  develop- 
ment of  the  present  relations  between  the  city  and  the 
governing  bodies  may  be  found  in  the  report  of  the  Charity 
Commission,  XXXII,  pt.  vi.  p.  7,  under  St.  Bartholomew's 
Hospital. 

124  14     See  p.  64  in  "  Church  Briefs,"  W.  A.  Bewes,  1896.     I  have 

to  thank  Messrs.  A.  &  C.  Black  for  permission  to  repro- 
duce the  illustration. 

125  36     For  Grafton,  cf.  D.N.B.  ;    he  seems  to   have  been   the  first 

treasurer  of  Bridewell,  Bethlem,  and  St.  Thomas's. 

126  14     The  first  record  of  a  regular   court   at    Bridewell    Hospital 

bears  the  date  of  9th  July,  1561. 

128  28  Other  keepers  of  Bethlehem  were  Sleeford,  mentioned  1587  : 
Wm.  Parrett  (1599-1605)  :  Richard  Lonsdale,  mentioned 
between  1605  and  1609  :  he  was  succeeded  by  J.  Grimston. 


CHAPTER   XVI 

132  14  "Memoirs  of  Tim.  Bright,"  W.  J.  Carlton,  191 1  :  "  Melan- 
choHe,"  T.  Bright,  1613  :  "  Shakespeare  and  Bright," 
M.  Levy,  1910. 

132  19     "  On  the  Tragedy  of  King  Lear,"  E.  Hart,  1851. 

133  13     "  English  Medicine  in  Anglo-Saxon  Times,"  J.  F.  Payne,  1904. 
133     17     Court  of  Requests  :  bundle  377,  No.  24,  January,  1561. 

133  22     "Chapters  in  the  History  of  the  Insane  in  the  British  Isles," 

D.  Hack  Tuke,  1882.    "  Natural  History  of  Cornwall,"  Wm. 
Borlase,  1758. 

134  8     "Good  Old  Times,"  F.  W.  Hackwood,  1910. 

134  22  "The  Belman  of  London,"  Thos.  Dekker  :  "A  Caveat  against 
Common  Cursitors,"  Thos.  Harman,  1566,  ed.  F.  J. 
Furnivall ;  "  Vagrants  and  Vagrancy,"  C.  J.  Ribton-Turner, 

1887. 


394  NOTES 

PAGE     LINE 

138  4  There  are  entries  in  the  court  books  of  1674  and  1675, 
instructing  Dr.  Thos.  Allen,  the  physician,  to  put  the 
following  advertisement  in  the  London  Gazette  : — 

"Whereas  several  Vagrant  Persons  do  wander  about  the 
City  of  London  and  Countries  pretending  themselves  to  be 
Lunaticks  under  cure  in  the  Hospital  of  Bethlem,  com- 
monly called  Bedlam,  with  brass  plates  upon  their  Arms 
and  inscriptions  thereon.  These  are  to  give  notice  that 
there  is  no  such  liberty  given  to  an}^  Patients  kept  in 
the  Hospital  for  their  cure,  neither  is  any  such  plate  as 
a  distinction  or  mark  put  upon  any  Lunatick  during  their 
being  there  or  when  discharged  thence.  And  that  the 
same  is  a  false  pretence  to  colour  their  wandering  and 
begging,  and  deceive  the  people  to  the  dishonour  of  the 
Government  of  that  Hospital." 

138  9  "Old  Enghsh  Popular  Music,"  W.  Chappell  and  H.  E. 
Wooldridge,  1893  :  "  Le  prince  d'amour,"  with  a  collection 
of  several  ingenious  poems  and  songs  by  the  wits  of  the 
age,  1660  :  "The  Dancing  Master"  (1658)  and  "Antidotes" 
(1669) ;  Pepys  Collection,  i.  460.  Bishop  Percy  says  that 
the  English  have  more  songs  on  the  subject  of  madness 
than  their  neighbours  ;  cf .  "  A  Collection  of  Old  Ballads," 
Thos.  Percy,  1765. 

140     15     "  History  of  Signboards,"  J.  Larwood  and  J.  C.  Hotten,  1875. 


CHAPTER  XVII 

141     10     "  History  of  Parish  Clerks'  Company,"  Jas.  Christie,  1893. 

143  16  Among  the  patients  mentioned  in  this  "  view"  was  "Anthony 
Greene,  Fellow  of  Pembroke  College,  Cambridge,  sent  in 
by  the  Lord  of  Canterbury,  and  Dr.  Andrewes  payeth 
twenty  nobles  a  year  for  him."  Anthony  Greene,  who 
appears  to  have  been  born  in  Russia,  was  elected  a  scholar 
of  Pembroke,  Cambridge,  on  the  foundation  of  Dr.  Watts, 
27th  June,  1588.  He  was  Reader  in  Greek,  1590.  I  have 
to  thank  the  librarian  for  information  about  Greene  and 
Christopher  Smart. 

143  37  The  "  Registers  of  St.  Botolph,  Bishopsgate,"  transcribed  by 
the  Rev.  A.  W.  C.  Hallen  in  1889,  have  been  printed. 


NOTES  395 

PAGE     LINE 

144  35     Bedlam  is  continually  rising  to  the  surface  in  Elizabethan 

and  Jacobean  literature.  Among  other  works,  cf.  Ben 
Jonson,  ''  Alchemist  "  and  "  Bartholomew  Fair  "  :  Thos. 
Middleton,  ''  The  Changehng  "  ;  Beaumont  and  Fletcher, 
"Monsieur  Thomas,"  "The  Pilgrim,"  "Fie  on  Love"; 
John  Ford,  "  The  Lover's  Melancholy "  ;  and  Jno.  Taylor, 
the  waterman  poet.  Two  of  the  bears  on  the  Bankside 
were  known  as  "Rose"  and  "Bess"  of  Bedlam. 

145  22     The  court  books  contain  a  protest  against  the  encroachments 

of  the  "White  Hart." 

145  34  "  Thy  bold  and  brazen-fac'd  exploit. 

In  want  some  coin  to  get, 
At  Bedlem's  Bowling-alley  late. 

Where  citizens  did  bet. 
And  throw  their  money  on  the  ground. 

To  which  thou  did'st  incline, 
And,  taking  up  an  'angel,'  swore, 

*  By  Heav'n,  this  game  is  mine  ! ' 
While  they  upon  each  other  look, 

Not  knowing  what  to  say, 
*  Clubs  '  calls,  '  Come,  sirrah,'  to  his  man, 

And  goes  with  coin  away." 

Cf.  also  Thos.  Nash,  "  Pierce  Pennilesse." 

146  22     Works  of  Nicholas  Breton,  2  vols.,  ed.  A.  B.  Grosart,  1876-9. 


CHAPTER   XVIII 

148  24  Reference  has  already  been  made  to  certain  ecclesiastical 
privileges  possessed  by  Bethlehem  priory.  I  fancy  from 
the  remonstrance  of  convocation  against  the  "  ungodly 
celebration  of  marriages  frequently  used  in  the  hospital 
of  Bethlehem  "  (i6th  Feb.,  1543)  that  Bethlem  may  have 
had  its  "Fleet  marriages"  and  its  "Fleet  parson,"  while 
it  was  yet  a  semi-monastic  institution.  Such  a  Bethlehem 
marriage  occurred  in  April,  1539,  when  a  widow,  refused 
marriage  by  the  clergy  at  Hitchin,  achieved  it  at  the 
hospital  (Letters  and  Papers  of  Hen.  VIII,  vol.  xiv.  pt.  i. 
no.  896).  In  the  same  year  parliament  petitioned  the  king 
that  "  penalties  might  be  devised  for  people,  who,  avoiding 
the   ordinary's   jurisdiction,   go   to   privileged   places   like 


396  NOTES 

PAGE     LINE 

Bethlehem,  and  are  married  without  banns  by  virtue  of  the 
licence  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  confirmed  under 
the  great  seal "  (id.  no.  870).  And  the  allusion  of  Dekker 
to  the  marriage  taking  place  in  Bethlem  suggests  that  the 
privileges  of  a  religious  house  outside  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  bishop  may  have  survived,  as  in  the  case  of  Holy 
Trinity  Priory,  Aldgate. 

151  7  J.  Stow,  i.  165,  ii.  74.  Collections  relating  to  inns  at  Public 
Library,  St.  Martin's  Lane,  W.C.  "A  Short  Account  of  the 
History  of  Devonshire  House,"  Society  of  Friends'  Library, 
Bishopsgate,  E.C. 

151  9     J.  W.  Archer. 

152  18     Cf.   "History  of   RationaHsm,"  W.   E.  Lecky,  1865:  "Eliza- 

bethan Demonology,"  T.  A.  Spalding,  1880  :  "Demonology," 
Sir  W.  Scott,  1876. 

153  1 8     "  Illustrated  Itinerary  in  the  Ward  of  Bishopsgate,"  Thomas 

Hugo,  1862. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

156  2     State  Papers,  Domestic  Series,  Jas.  I,  vol.  civ.  no.   19  (loth 

December,  1618). 

157  6     "  Mikrokosmographia,"  Helkiah  Crooke,  163 1  (2nd  ed.)  at  the 

British  Museum  and  College  of  Physicians. 

158  27     Petition  against  Bridewell,  S.  P.  Dom.  Jas.  I,  vol.  cix.  no.  68 

(May,  1619). 

160     19     "  Micrologia,"    R.    M.,    1629;    "London    and    the  Country 
Carbinadoed,"  Donald  Lupton,  1632. 

160  32     For  Yelverton,  cf.  D.N.B.  and  S.P.D.,  Jas.  I,  vol.  cxvii.  no.  76 

(15th  November,  1620). 

161  16     The  name  of  the  patient  was  Weekes  :  he  had  been  secretary 

to  Lord  Willoughby  in  Denmark.     S.P.D.,  Jas.  I,  vol.  cix. 
no.  18  (8th  May,  1619). 


NOTES  397 


CHAPTER   XX 

PAGE     LINE 

165  2  Report  on  Bethlehem  Hospital  :  State  Papers,  Domestic 
Series,  Chas.   I,  vol.   ccxxiv.  no.  21   (loth  October,  1632). 

165  3     Report  on  Dr.  Crooke,  S.P.D.S.,  Chas.  I,  vol.  ccxxxvii.  nos.  5 

and  6  (17th  April,   1633), 

166  8     "Ordered   that   henceforth  the   accounts   of   Bridewell  and 

Bethlem   be  kept  apart "    (court   books,    13th   November, 
1630). 

166  9  Order  to  governors  and  officers  of  Bridewelland  Bethlehem 
to  bring  in  a  clearer  account,  2nd  May,  163 1,  cf.  S.P.D.S., 
vol.  ccxiii.  (Feb.,  1632). 

168  7  The  illustrations  of  Pindar's  house  and  lodge  are  taken  from 
J.  W.  Archer's  ''Vestiges  of  Old  London,"  1851.  See 
also  "  London  Vanished  and  Vanishing  (p.  51),  Philip 
Norman. 

168  31  The  charter  of  Charles  I  may  be  found  in  "  Historical 
Charters    of    the    City    of    London,"    W.    de    G.    Birch, 

1887. 

168  38     Statement  of  commissioners  of  pious  uses,  9th  May,  163 1. 

169  10     For    Farnham,  cf.    D.N.B.  :     "  Remarkable  Characters,"   J. 

Caulfield,  1790  :   "False  Prophets  Discovered,"  J.W.,  1642, 
press  mark,  E.  138  (4).     Printed  by  LW. 

169  34  For  Dr.  Meverall,  cf.  "  Roll  of  the  College  of  Physicians," 
W.  Munk.  When  he  was  twenty-three  years  of  age  he 
had  the  small-pox,  and  every  aperture  in  the  sick-room 
was  carefully  closed  up.  He  became  insensible  under 
this  treatment,  and  was  supposed  to  be  dead.  However, 
the  preparations  for  burial  exposed  him  to  fresh  air,  and 
he  revived,  just  in  time  to  escape  being  buried  alive. 

171  2  For  Robins  and  Tannye,  cf.  L.  Muggleton,  "Acts  of  the 
Witness."  Tannye  appears  to  have  been  an  epileptic.  I 
found  the  entry  of  his  death  in  the  registers  of  St.  Stephen's 
church,  Coleman  Street,  under  1689,  "Thomas  Tanney, 
buried  at  Bedlam  Yard." 


398  NOTES 


PAGE     LIXE 


171     13     My  friend,  Mr.  H.  B.  Wheatley,  has  noticed  Lady  Eleanor 
and  her  prophecies  in  his  "  Of  Anagrams,"  pp.  1 14-18. 


CHAPTER   XXI 

For  the  history  of  the  period,  so  far  as  it  affected  the  city, 
I  have,  as  elsewhere,  relied  on  ''  London  and  the  Kingdom," 
R.  R,  Sharpe.  Here,  as  always,  the  local  touches  are 
inspired  by  the  court  books. 


179  12  For  Sir  G.  Whitmore,  cf.  D.N.B.  :  Catalogue  to  the  Pictures 
at  Orsett  Hall,  Essex,  ed.  Major  F.  H.  D.  C.  Whitmore: 
"  London  and  the  Kingdom  "  (vol.  ii.),  R.  R.  Sharpe  ;  and 
letter  in  Times,  26th  May,  1852,  with  references.  Balmes 
House,  where  Whitmore  lived,  was  afterwards  a  private 
asylum.  Charles  and  Mary  Lamb  were  confined  in 
*'  Hoxton  House,"  with  which  I  identify  Balmes  House. 

179  20     "The  treasurer  to  be  intreated  to  give  his  lands  at  Fulham 

as  security  for  the  money  he  has  in  hand  upon  his  several 
accounts"  (c.b.,   12th   May,   1641). 

"  The  auditors  treating  Mr.  Treasurer  about  the  sale 
of  his  land  at  Fulham  towards  satisfying  the  foot  of  his 
account.  He  values  the  property  at  £,2>S  P^^  annum,  and 
the  price  thereof  ;£7oo.  This  is  thought  to  be  excessive 
and  ;^6oo  is  offered,  which  the  treasurer  thinks  too  little  " 
(c.b.,  28th  July,  1641). 

180  6     R.   R.  Sharpe,  "  London  and  the   Kingdom,"  is,  I  am  sure, 

in  error.  There  would  be  no  room  in  the  hospital  for 
prisoners  of  war.  But  it  is  possible  that  soldiers  who 
had  become  insane  were  admitted,  as  in  the  French  wars 
of  the  eighteenth  century. 

181  I     Parhament   exempted   the   "  royal   hospitals "   from    certain 

taxes;  cf.  Hist.  MSS.  Commission,  Report  VI,  pt.  i. 
appendix,  p.  36a,  i6th  November,  1644 :  "  Draft  Ordinance 
for  freeing  the  rents  and  revenues  of  St.  Bartholomew's, 
St.  Thomas's,  Bridewell  and  Bethlem  from  assessment 
in  consideration  of  many  sick  and  wounded  soldiers  being 
supported  in  them,  while  their  revenues  are  much 
diminished  in  these  dead  and  troublous  times," 


NOTES  399 

PAGE     LINE 

"  The  rents  of  Bethlem  have  lately  been  assessed, 
towards  payment  of  the  arm}?^,  the  assessors  not  being 
acquainted  with  the  ordinance  of  exemption"  (c.b.,  4th 
May,   1649). 

182  I  Some  six  years  earlier  the  court  began  to  make  provision  for 
the  destitute  : — 

"  Gowns,  coats,  shirts,  and  smocks  to  be  provided  for  the 
poor  lunaticks,  who  have  no  friends  to  take  care  of  them" 
(c.b.,  November,  1646). 

182  5  ;^5o  given  to  Bethlem  by  the  Custom  House  on  the  order  of 
the  commissioners  for  the  "  new  impost  on  coals  brought 
into  London  "  (c.b.,  7th  February,  1655). 

182  6     Evelyn   imagined    that  a   patient  whom   he   saw  had   been 

"  driven  mad  by  writing  verses,"  but  the  fact,  presumably, 
was  that  he  had  taken  to  write  verses  in  consequence  of 
his  acute  mania.  I  have  known  very  many  patients  become 
poets  under  the  inspiration  of  mental  disease.  Even  in  the 
exalted  stage  of  general  paralysis  many  of  my  parishioners 
have  written  long  poems  or  translated  books  of  Homer 
into  verse. 

183  9    A  list  of  the  tokens  issued  by  taverns  in  the  liberty  of  Bethlem 

during  the  seventeenth  century  will  be  found  in  William 
Boyne's  book,  1858,  pp.  192,  193.  There  are  specimens  of 
such  tokens  in  the  Guildhall  library. 

184  6     For  George  Fox,  cf.  "  Studies  in  Mystical  Theology,"  R.  M. 

Jones,  1909.  For  the  story  of  Bunyan's  religious  mania  I 
have  carefully  studied  the  text  of  "Grace  Abounding"  and 
"Pilgrim's  Progress"  in  the  Cambridge  English  Classics, 
edited  by  Rev.  John  Brown. 

185  22     Cf.  the   British  Museum  catalogue,  under  Nathaniel  Bacon 

and  Francesco  Spira. 

186  25     For  Daniel,  cf.  Granger,  "  History  of  England,"  ii.  460  :  "The 

Wonderful  Magazine,"  vol.  ii.  pp.  22-3  :  "  Remarkable 
Characters,"  James  Caulfield,  1790. 

187  34    The   allusion    may   be   to   the   Great   Fire,   which   did   not, 

however,  touch  thje  hospital,  or,  it  may  be,  to  a  fire  in 
the  roof  in  1681. 


400  NOTES 


CHAPTER   XXII 

PAGE     LINE 

189  8     "The   entertainment  of   the   Lady  Monk  at  Fisher's  Folly, 

together  with  an  address  made  to  her  by  a  member  of  the 
college  of  Bedlam  at  her  visiting  these  Phanatiques." 

"Illustrations  of   English  Popular  Literature,"  J.  Payne 
Collier,  vol.  ii.,  Broadsides,  p.  31,  1864. 

190  30     For  all  references  to  S.  Pepys,  cf.  H.  B.  Wheatley's  edition 

of  his  "  Diary  " — quite  a  classic. 

191  4     For   the   story   of   the    Houblon   family,  cf.   Lady  A.  F.  A. 

Houblon's  "  The  Houblon  Family,"  1907. 

192  5     For  local  details  as  to  the  Plague  I  am  indebted  to  D.  Defoe, 

"History  of    the  Plague,"   and   R.    R.  Sharpe's    "London 
and  the  Kingdom." 

197  I  There  is  no  modern  life  of  Robert  Hooke,  the  universal 
genius.  I  have,  however,  printed  a  more  detailed  memoir — 
based  largely  on  the  life  prefaced  to  his  "  Works "  by 
Dr.  Richard  Waller  (1706) — in  our  magazine  [Under  the 
Dome)  for  March  and  June,  1909.  The  Haberdashers' 
Company  still  preserve  the  pasteboard  model  which  Hooke 
made  for  their  almshouses.  Hooke  was  also  the  architect 
of  Montagu  House,  erected  in  1678  on  the  site  of  the 
present  British  Museum  :  it  was  burnt  down  in  1686. 
There  are  two  or  three  manuscript  volumes  in  the  Guild- 
hall Records  Office  which  contain  a  survey  of  the  London 
streets  after  the  Fire  of  London  by  Hooke  and  others.  If 
published,  they  would  give  us  quite  a  directory  of  the 
citizens  of  the  period,  and  much  general  information 
useful  to  historians.  It  is  much  to  be  wished  that  the 
corporation  would  hasten  the  calendaring  of  their  public 
records. 


CHAPTER    XXIII 

202  3  For  the  history  of  the  Roman  period,  cf.  "  Victoria  History 
of  London,"  W.  Page. 

202  16  I  have  transcribed  the  rest  of  the  song  in  the  hospital 
magazine  {Under  the  Dome)  for  December,  1909.  In 
the  following  year  a  skit  on  the  puritans  was  sung  by 
somebody  dressed  as  a  "  New  Bedlamite "  at  the  lord 
mayor's  banquet. 


NOTES  401 

PAGE     LINE 

203  14  A  technical  and  exhaustive  description  of  the  architecture 
may  be  studied  in  the  Gentleman's  Magazine  Library, 
architectural  volume,  pt.  ii.  pp.  65-7. 

203  16  "Ancient  Topography  of  London,"  J.  T.  Smith,  1815.  The 
traditional  story  of  the  anger  of  the  French  king  at  the 
employment  of  a  French  style  of  architecture  may  be 
dismissed  as  an  anti-Gallican  fable. 

203  29     For  Robert  White,  cf .  pp.  55  and  56  of  *'  The  Old  Engravers 

of  England,"  M.  A.  Salaman,  1906. 

204  30     For  Gibber,  consult   D.N.B.  :   "  Lives   of  British   Painters," 

vol.  iii.  p.  26,  Allan  Cunningham,  1829 :  "  Nollekens  and 
His  Times,"  J.  T.  Smith,  ed.  Gosse,  1875 :  "  Anecdotes  of 
Painting,"  H.  Walpole,  ed.  R.  N.  Wornum,  1888. 

In  the  'eighties  Mr.  Deputy  Atkins  told  Lieut-Colonel 
Copeland,  the  treasurer,  that  he  remembered  these  figures 
over  the  gates  of  the  Moorfields  hospital  in  the  early  part 
of  the  nineteenth  century,  as  also  seeing  the  gardeners 
mowing  the  lawns  in  Lothbury  at  the  back  of  the  Bank 
of  England.  The  figures  accompanied  the  patients  from 
the  Moorfields  hospital  to  the  present  building,  where  they 
remained  until  1858.  In  that  year  they  were  removed  to 
the  South  Kensington  Museum.  Finally  Mr.  Joshua  Butter- 
worth,  F.S.A.,  removed  them  to  the  Guildhall,  where  they 
now  shun  the  public  eye  in  a  dark  corner  of  the  crypt- 
museum,  in  1888. 

There  are  many  allusions  in  the  court  books  to  repairs 
executed  on  the  "figures." 

?o6  4  My  friend,  Mr.  James  Arrow,  has  furnished  me  with  some 
valuable  remarks  on  beadles'  staves  in  general,  and  on  ours 
in  particular  : — 

"  The  beadle's  staff  came  in  shortly  after  the  Restoration. 
But  the  date  cannot  always  be  definitely  stated,  for  the 
hall-marks  are  in  many  cases  obliterated.  Your  very  hand- 
some, massive,  and  beautifully  preserved  staff-head  is  of 
solid  silver,  some  13  inches  in  height.  Elongated  and 
pear-shaped,  it  is  surmounted  by  a  circular  medallion 
measuring  4  inches  in  diameter,  bearing  on  both  sides 
the  royal  arms,  Tudor  and  Stuart.  The  heraldic  devices 
are  embossed  and  chased  in  extreme  relief.  The  summit 
of  the  staff-head  is  encircled  with  acanthus-leaf  chasing, 
beneath  which  are  three  shields  on  a  level,  bearing 
27 


402  NOTES 


PAGE     LINE 


the  arms  respectively  of  Sir  William  Turner,  Bethlem 
Hospital,  and  of  the  city.  Acanthus-leaf  ornamental 
work  fills  up  the  spaces,  and  a  bold  thread-work  divides 
the  lower  portion,  which  is  ornamented  by  the  figure 
of  a  lion  rampant,  some  scroll-work,  and  the  coat  of 
arms,  which  the  donor,  J.  Kendall,  caused  to  be  placed 
upon  it  to  commemorate  his  princely  gift.  Round  the 
base  of  the  staff-head  is  the  following  inscription,  clearly 
engraved  in  contemporary  lettering  : — '  The  gift  of  Jno. 
Kendall,  a  Governor  of  this  Hospital,  1682.'  But,  as  is  so 
often  the  case,  the  hall-marks  have  become  obliterated  by 
time  and  the  rather  hard  wear  to  which  it  has  been 
subjected.  There  is,  however,  very  little  doubt  that  it  was 
made  by  the  silversmith  commissioned  to  execute  the 
fellow  staff-head  (identical  in  every  respect  except  exact 
weight  and  size)  at  Bridewell  about  the  year  1682,  the  date 
of  the  inscription,  which  in  itself  somewhat  confirms  the 
assumption.  The  Bridewell  staff-head  still  bears  the 
maker's  mark  in  exquisite  perfection,  which  is  repro- 
duced in  William  Chaffers'  work  on  Hall-marks  (1913), 
as  one  of  those  still  unidentified,  viz.  'G.  S.'  above  a 
star  on  a  pointed  shield,  about  which  Chaffers  says  :  '  On 
the  above  plate  are  the  marks  from  workmen  taken  at  this 
office  (Goldsmiths'  Hall)  prior  to  the  15th  of  April,  1697,  of 
which  not  any  other  entry  is  to  be  found,  from  the  date 
of  the  Goldsmiths'  order,  1675,  to  the  new  standard,  1697.'  " 

207  9  The  treasurer,  Lieut. -Colonel  Copeland,  who  is  an  authority  on 
art,  thinks  that  the  portrait  of  Henry  VTH  might  have  been 
painted  by  Guillim  Streetes,  painter  to  Edward  VI,  in  155 1. 
I  might  also  suggest  the  name  of  Nicholas  Lyzard  (d.  1570). 
Cf.  The  Connoisseur,  vol.  xxxi.  p.  72,  October,  191 1  ;  "An 
Early  English  pre- Holbein  School  of  Portraiture,"  William 
A.  Shaw.  There  is  a  reproduction  of  the  Warwick  Castle 
Henry  VHI  in  the  Magazine  of  Art  for  April,  1895,  p.  212. 
D'Arlincourt  remarks  that  Henry  VHI  is  appropriately 
housed  in  Bedlam. 

209  3  Another  portrait  of  Sir  William  Turner  in  the  Hall  at  Bride- 
well, where  are  many  Lelys  and  Knellers,  was  painted  by 
Mrs.  Mary  Beale  (1632-1697).  Her  husband  says  in  his 
diary,  under  January,  1677  :  "  Mrs.  B.  painted  Sir  William 
Turner's  picture  from  head  to  foot  for  our  worthy  friend, 
Mr.  Knollys."  See  also  court  book  (2nd  March,  1677)  : — 
"At  this  court  Mr.  Francis  Knollys,  one  of  the  governors, 


NOTES  403 

MGE     LiNfi 

thanked  for  Sir  W.  Turner's  picture,  which  he  of  late  freely 
gave  to  Bridewell.  .  .  .  Mr.  Beale  to  be  added  to  the 
committee  for  regulating  Bethlem." 

211  II  The  master  of  St.  John's  College,  Cambridge,  has  been  good 
enough  to  give  me  details  of  John  Thamar  : — "John 
Thamar,  son  of  Thomas  Thamar,  of  Peterborough,  B.A. 
of  Peterhouse.  He  was  admitted  to  St.  John's,  26th 
January,  167 1,  and  elected  a  Fellow  of  St.  John's  on  the 
nomination  of  the  bishop  of  Ely,  30th  October,  1672." 
Thamar  appears  to  have  been  admitted  into  the  hospital 
at  the  end  of  1676  or  thereabouts.  He  died  13th  May, 
1700,  and  was  buried  two  days  later  in  the  Bethlem 
burial-yard. 

The  site  of  the  hospital  burial-ground  appears  to  be 
occiipied  to-day  by  the  church  and  churchyard  of  St.  Mary, 
Charterhouse.  The  neighbourhood  of  the  burial-ground 
was  known  as  the  "  Wooden  World,''  from  the  number  of 
houses  surrounding  it  which  were  built  of  lath,  plaster,  and 
timber.  Some  of  the  patients  were  also  buried  in  "  Tindall's 
burial-ground,"  which  was  Bunhill  Fields.  Close  to  St. 
Mary's,  Charterhouse,  is  a  street  still  called  Play  House 
Yard.  Here  stood  the  famous  "Fortune"  theatre,  opened 
in  1601,  burnt  down  in  1621,  rebuilt,  but  gutted  by  sectaries 
in  1649. 


CHAPTER   XXIV 

212       2     Roger  Jarman  was  the  carpenter,  Cartwright  the  mason,  and 
Fitch  the  bricklayer. 

212  16     For  Bolton,  see  R.  R.  Sharpe,  "  London  and  the  Kingdom," 

vol.  ii.,  and  Pepys's  "  Diary." 

213  27     In  the  annals  of  the  Society  of  Friends  I  notice  that  in  1678 

John  Goodson,  surgeon,  of  St.  Bartholomew  Close,  proposed 
to  take  a  "  large  house  for  distempered  and  discomposed 
people." 

213  32     For  Lord  William  Craven  and  other  members  of  the  family, 

who  were  good  friends  to  the  hospital,  cf.  D.N.B. 

214  14     The  broadsides  on  Sir  William  Turner  will  be  found  in  the 

"Large  Room"  of  the  British  Museum,  "Poetical  Broad 

^  C.  20  f.  2     C.  20  f .  2   _, 

sides,    p.  158, — ,  ,  82  L.  8. 

^     "^  198  200      ' 


404  NOTES 


PAGE     LINE 


222     13     Cedars  Road,  Clapham  Common,  approximately  indicates  the 
site  of  the  house  occupied  by  Hewer  and  Pepys. 


CHAPTER   XXV 

For  the  history  of  the  period,  cf.  R.  R.  Sharpe,  ''  London  and 
the  Kingdom,"  vol.  ii.  The  court  books  also  reflect  the 
policy  of  Charles  II  and  James  II  towards  the  institutions 
of  the  city. 


223  18     Mr.  C.  H.  C.  Du  Cane  wrote  to  me  on  27th  July,  1912  : — - 

"  I  have  in  my  possession  among  the  family  plate  a  flagon 
weighing  about  70  oz.,  and  bearing  the  hall-mark  of  1676/7. 
It  is  inscribed  as  follows  :  '  Given  by  order  of  Courte  for 
the  Hospitalls  of  Bridewell  and  Bethlem,  London,  to 
Benjamin  Du  Cane  Esqre.,  as  a  Memorial  of  their  thanks 
for  his  great  care  and  paines  in  building  of  new  Bethlem 
and  Bridewell,  and  likewise  for  his  faithfull  discharge  of 
the  office  of  Treasurer  to  both  houses  April  27,  1677.'  It 
is  interesting  to  hear  of  the  record  of  the  presentation,  and, 
perhaps,  there  were  originally  a  pair  of  the  flagons.  The 
price  given  (;^4o)  is  also  interesting  from  the  fact  that  two 
years  ago  a  well-known  dealer  made  me  an  offer  of  a 
thousand  guineas  for  the  flagon,  I  believe  on  behalf  of  an 
American  purchaser.  It  is  in  an  unusually  good  state  of 
preservation,  and,  of  course,  the  inscription  adds  largely  to 
its  value." 

Benjamin  Du  Cane,  the  sixth  son  of  John  Du  Quesne, 
born  20th  March,  1612,  married  Olive,  daughter  of  Richard 
Price,  and  died  13th  April,  1690.  His  ancestor  fled  out 
of  Flanders  from  the  duke  of  Alva's  persecution,  and 
settled  in  Canterbury. 

224  15     For  Tyson  see  D.N.B.  and  authorities  quoted  :  "  Survey  of 

London "  (Stow),  2  vols..  Rev.  John  Strype,  1720  :  "  Roll 
of  the  College  of  Physicians,"  W.  Munk,  1878  :  also  Thomas 
Hearne's  "Collections,"  Oxford  Historical  Society,  vol.  vii., 
from  which  I  give  a  quotation  in  all  its  wealth  of  capitals  : — 

"Tyson  (Edw.),  A.M.  of  Magd.  Hall,  became  a  Practi- 
tioner of  Phys.  in  London,  and  rais'd  himself  to  some 
eminency.  After  this,  by  the  Perswasion  of  some  intimate 
Friends,  he  was  prevail'd  with  to  commence  Dr.  of  Phys. 


NOTES  405 

PAGE     LINE 

in  Cambridge.  Being  a  man  of  Parts  and  Ingenuity  he 
prepared  his  Exercise  before  he  went  down  to  the  Uni- 
versity ;  but  when  he  came  there  (as  he  himself  was  pleased 
to  tell  his  Friend  and  Fellow  Student,  Dr.  Plott)  they  would 
not  let  him  do  his  Exercise,  but  insisted  upon  having  his 
Money  instead  of  it.  Which  Dr.  Tyson  took  so  very  ill  yt, 
tho'  he  accepted  of  his  Degree,  as  not  knowing  well  how 
to  avoid  it,  yet  he  frequently  said  yt  he  could  not  well  look 
upon  himself  as  a  Doctor  of  Physick." 

227  12  Many  touches  in  my  sketch  of  Tyson's  funeral  are  derived 
from  a  chapter  in  Sir  W.  Besant's  novel,  "The  Orange 
Girl." 

229  I  A  painting  of  Lee  hangs  on  the  walls  of  the  Garrick  Club, 
and  also  at  the  Dulwich  picture  gallery,  and  there  are 
engraved  portraits  of  him  in  the  Print  Room  at  the  British 
Museum.  A  writer  in  the  Connoisseur,  vol.  xxxiv.  p.  6 
(September,  1912),  in  an  article  on  "  Plumbagoes,"  or 
miniatures  in  lead  pencil,  attributes  to  William  Faithorne, 
the  elder  (1616-1691),  a  portrait,  which  he  reproduces.  I 
cannot,  indeed,  find  it  in  the  list  of  Faithorne's  works,  but 
it  looks  to  me  as  if  the  Garrick  Club  portrait  and  other 
pictures  of  Nathaniel  Lee  had  been  painted  from  it.  It  is 
stated  that  Lee  was  released  at  the  wish  of  the  duke  of  York. 
The  Board  of  Green  Cloth  formerly  dealt  with  all  crimes 
and  misdemeanours  committed  within  the  precincts  of  the 
royal  palaces  :  to-day  it  confines  itself  to  regulating  the 
duties  of  the  servants  of  the  royal  household. 

231  8  For  Guy  see  D.N.B.  and  "  Biographical  History  of  Guy's 
Hospital,"  G.  T.  Bettany  and  S.  Wilks,  1892. 


CHAPTER  XXVI 

234  2     For  Dr.  Hale  cf.  Dod,  Harveian  oration  (1729),  in  the  Museum 

Library  :  also  "  Collections "  (Thomas  Hearne),  Oxford 
Historical  Society,  vol.  vii.  :  for  his  portrait  at  Oxford  cf. 
"Catalogue  of  Portraits  at  Oxford,"  Rachel  E.  Poole,  1912. 

235  27     Hist.  MSS.  Report  VI,  pt.  i.,  appendix,  p.  2296,  under  date 

6th  February,  1609-1610.  Lord  Percy  with  Lady  Penelope 
and  her  two  sisters  "  saw  the  lions,  the  show  of  Bethle- 
hem, the  place  where  the  prince  was  created,  and  the 
fireworks  at  the  Artillery  Gardens," 


4o6  NOTES 

PAGE     LINE 

235  29  The  details  used  in  this  chapter  to  describe  the  scenes 
on  visiting  days  may  be  studied  in  the  Taller,  i8th  June, 
1709  :  28th  January,  1710  :  Gentleman's  Magazine,  1745  : 
London  Spy,  Edward  Ward,  1699  :  Thomas  Brown,  Works, 
vol.  iii.,  ed,  1760 :  The  World,  7th  June  and  22nd  November, 
1753  •  "  The  Adventures  of  a  Specialist,"  G.  A.  Stevens, 
1788:  "The  Man  of  Feeling,"  Henry  Mackenzie,  1771. 

241  18     A  list  of  the  pamphlets  and  sermons  of  Stafford  will  be  found 

under  his  name  in  the  British  Museum  catalogue. 

242  8     "Poems  on  Several  Occasions,"  H.  Carey,  1729. 


CHAPTER  XXVn 

243  13  Some  details  of  the  life  of  Edward  Barkham  may  be  found 
in  Dome,  Dec,  1904  ;  Hannah  Fowke,  sister  of  our  bene- 
factor, was  granted  an  annuity  of  £^0,  but  "she  died  very 
poor,  having  to  pawn  her  things." 

243  18     There  was  a  "  Bedlam  Square  "  in  Worksop  within  the  memory 

of  one  of  my  correspondents  ;  I  have  found  traces  of  the 
name  near  Cheltenham  and  near  Wareham.  Mr.  F.  W. 
Hackwood  tells  me  that  fifty  years  ago  in  the  Midlands 
children  had  a  game,  "  Release  Bedlam,"  based  on  the 
captures  and  escapes  of  local  patients. 

244  9     For  the  yield  of  the  estates,  the  gift  of  Barkham,  between 

1817  and  1836,  cf.  Charity  Commissioners'  Report,  p.  496. 

244  15  I  have  extracted  from  the  court  books  the  following  notes 
relating  to  the  building  of  the  Incurable  blocks  :— 

1723  (i8th  July).  Court  resolves  that  special  apartments 
for  incurables  be  built  and  application  to  be  made  to  the 
city  for  a  piece  of  land  in  Moorfields.  1723  (iSth  Novem- 
ber). Building  Committee  desired  to  proceed  to  build  wing 
for  male  incurables.  Richard  Walton  elected  first  incurable 
patient — acute  case,  no  lucid  intervals,  no  friends  or  means. 
1725  (17th  December).  Subscription  book  to  be  sent  round. 
Building  has  begun  out  of  benefactions  already  given. 
1728  (12th  July),  The  incurable  list  not  to  include 
"mopes":  only  mischievous  and  ungovernable  eligible. 
1733  (28th  June).  Agreed  to  erect  a  wing  for  female 
incurables  at  west.  1736  (nth  February).  Thanks  to  a 
governor  for  supervising  the  building  of  the  female 
incurable  wing. 


NOTES  407 

PAGE     LINE 

244  27  For  description  of  Hogarth's  "  Bedlam  "  cf .  ''  Political  and 
Personal  Satires,"  F.  G.  Stephens,  1877,  vol.  iii.  pt.  i. 
No.  2246  and  following  :  "  Hogarth  MoraHsed,"  Jno. 
Trusler,  1768:  "Description  of  Soane  Museum"  (1905). 
Let  me  at  this  point  make  acknowledgment  to  the  curator 
(Mr.  Spiers)  of  this  httle  known,  but  most  interesting, 
museum,  for  many  courtesies. 

249  15  For  the  Rawlinsons  cf.  D.N.B.  :  "  Literary  Anecdotes  of  the 
Eighteenth  Century,"  J.  G.  Nichols:  "Catalogue  of  Por- 
traits at  Oxford,"  Rachel  E.  Poole,  191 2.  Richard  RawUn- 
son  left  Bridewell  £200  on  condition  that  the  portrait,  a 
Kneller,  of  his  father,  Sir  Thomas  Rawlinson  (president 
1705-1708),  was  hung  on  the  walls  of  the  Mansion  House. 
It  was  finally  restored  to  Bridewell,  but  not  before  it  had 
received  damage  by  neglect. 

249  26  I  have  to  thank  Dr.  Richard  R.  Leeper,  Resident  Medical 
Superintendent  of  St.  Patrick's  Hospital  (fd.  1745),  Dublin, 
for  more  than  one  reference  about  Swift,  and  also  for  the 
gift  of  the  print  reproduced  elsewhere.  For  the  "  Closing 
years  of  Swift's  life"  (1849)  see  Sir  W.  R.  Wilde. 


CHAPTER  XXVni 

252  12     Pope  :  "  Imitations  of  Horace,"  bk.  ii.  ep.  i.  1.  419. 

'•  Let  my  dirty  leaves 
Clothe  spice,  line  trunks,  or,  fluttering  in  a  row, 
Befringe  the  rails  of  Bedlam  and  Soho." 

Also  cf.  Taller,  No.  174,  and  note  there  by  J.  Nichols  that 
r  the  "walls  of  Bedlam  were  almost  covered  from  17 10  to 

1786  by  the  dealers  in  second-hand  books." 

253  II     For  the  "Harlequin  Methodist"  caricature  consult  "Cata- 

logue of  Prints  and  Drawings,"  F.  G.  Stephens,  vol,  iv. 
No.  4092,  p.  330  ;  date  c.  1763.  A  fuller  description  of  the 
thermometer  design  will  be  found  in  vol.  iii.  pt.  i.  p.  304  of 
the  same  work. 

253     36     For  the   story  of  Periam  see  "Journals  of  G.  Whitefield," 
W.  Wale,  1905,  pp.  261  and  foil. 


408  NOTES 

PAGE     LINE 

254  3?)    There  are  several  allusions  to  Dr.  James  Monro  and  Dr.  John 

Monro  in  Walpole's  "  Letters."  The  portraits  of  the  four 
Monros  of  this  book,  who  served  the  hospital  as  physicians 
— the  son  succeeding  the  father  from  1728  to  1853 — may 
be  inspected  on  the  walls  of  the  College  of  Physicians. 

255  20     For    the    association    of    John   Wesley   with    Bethlem   and 

insanity  cf.  the  standard  edition  of  his  "Journals,"  by 
Rev.  N.  Curnock,  1909.  Many  curious  problems  are  sug- 
gested by  some  of  the  entries.  The  presence  and  the  voice 
of  Wesley  often  provoked  the  paroxysms  of  raving  mad- 
ness :  on  the  other  hand  he  was  often  able  after  praying 
and  singing  for  a  long  while  to  reduce  acute  mania  to 
silence,  or  even  to  calmness.  Wesley  describes  in  his 
"  Journals "  many  cases  of  religious  mania  with  which 
he  came  in  contact,  but  always  as  if  they  were  cases  of 
demoniacal  possession. 

259  19     For  fuller  descriptions  of  the  "  Military  Prophet "  satire  see 

"  Catalogue  of  Prints  and  Drawings,"  F.  G.  Stephens, 
vol.  iii.  pt.  i.  No.  3076 :  Walpole's  "  Letters,"  2nd  April 
and  19th  May,  1750  :  General  Advertiser  3.n.d  other  journals 
in  April  and  May,  1750  :  ''  Diary  of  Charles  Wesley  "  under 
4th  and  5th  April,  1750  :  London  Magazine,  1750.  Stephens 
gives  the  prophet's  name  as  Mitchell.  A  man  of  that  name 
was  certainly  admitted  into  Bethlem  later  in  the  year  ; 
he,  however,  came  from  a  Somersetshire  village. 

260  3     William  Hutton's  ''Life,"  1816,  pp.  71,  74. 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

264  4  On  ist  October,  1777,  a  report  was  made  to  the  court  by 
the  grand  committee  of  Bethlem  that  Thomas  Home,  a 
governor  of  long  standing,  had  for  five  or  six  months 
drawn  from  the  buttery  "  joints,  milk,  bread,  beer,  cheese, 
butter,  and  vomits."  The  steward,  William  Rashfield,  was 
reprimanded  for  his  connivance. 

266  4  "  De  Londres  et  ses  environs,"  printed  at  Amsterdam  without 
an  author's  name  in  1788.  An  interesting  article  on  the 
London  of  the  period  might  be  written  out  of  this  book, 
which  is  in  the  Guildhall  Library. 


NOTES  409 

PAGE     LINE 

266  32  For  "  Bibliography  ot  the  Writings  of  Christopher  Smart " 
(1903),  cf.  G.  J.  Gray.  It  is  to  the  late  Rev.  D.  C.  Tovey 
that  the  literary  world  owes  the  straightening  out  of  the 
Smart  tangle.  I  hope  that  Pembroke  College,  Cambridge, 
may  acquire  Mr.  Cowslade's  picture  of  Smart.  The  refer- 
ences to  Bethlem  in  "The  Midwife"  (3  vols.,  1750-1753), 
which  Smart  edited,  are  in  vol.  i.  pp.  176,  193,  and  ii. 
p.  17.  Cf.  also  R.  Browning's  "  Parleyings  with  Certain 
People,"  1887. 


CHAPTER   XXX 

For  the  "  Life  and  Reign  of  George  III "  I  have  generally 
followed  J.  H.  Jesse,  1867,  and  Sir  N.  Wraxall,  "  Historical 
Memoirs,"  1815,  and  "  Posthumous  Memoirs,"  1836,  as  well 
as  other  authorities  given  in  D.N.B. 

I  discovered  most  of  the  caricatures  reproduced  in  these 
pages  by  a  systematic  search,  year  by  year,  in  the  "  Smith 
Collection  "  of  caricatures  in  the  Print  Room  at  the  British 
Museum. 


272  27  For  the  allusions  to  Dr.  Johnson  there  is  only  one  book  and 
one  index  to  consult — the  edition  of  Boswell  with  Dr.  G.  B. 
Hill's  notes  and  references. 

274  10  CoUins,  the  poet,  seems  to  have  died  in  1759  of  general 
paralysis  of  the  insane,  though  the  incubation  of  the  disease 
must  be  dated  from  1750. 

274  31     In  A.  C.  Benson's  "  Thy   Rod  and  Thy  Staff,"   1912,  there 

may  be  studied  the  best  description — in  a  literary  sense — of 
melancholia,  which  often  assumes  the  names  of  neuras- 
thenia or  nervous  breakdown  :  Mr.  Benson  suffered  (he 
tells  us)  from  melancholia  for  two  or  three  years. 

275  I     There  are  many  allusions  in  the  works  and  biographies  of 

George  Borrow  to  the  "screaming  horrors,"  the  "delirium,'' 
and  the  "  depression "  from  which  he  suffered  from  time 
to  time.  It  would  appear  to  have  been  some  form  and 
measure  of  melancholia,  possibly  accompanied  by  voices 
or  visions.  Borrow  found  draughts  of  port  or  good  ale  the 
best  medicine.     The  disciples  of  Borrow  will  recall  the 


4IO  ^  NOTES 


PAGE     LINE 


letter  attributed  to  Isopel  Berners  in  "  Romany  Rye " 
(ch.  xvi.) : — 

"  For  some  time  past  I  have  become  almost  convinced 
that,  though  with  a  wonderful  deal  of  learning,  and  ex- 
ceedingly shrewd  in  some  things,  you  were — pray  don't  be 
offended — at  the  root  mad  ;  and  though  mad  people,  I  have 
been  told,  sometimes  make  very  good  husbands,  I  was  un- 
willing that  your  friends,  if  you  had  any,  should  say  that 
Belle  Berners,  the  workhouse  girl,  took  advantage  of  your 
infirmity." 

275  10     Among  other  allusions  to  the  hospital  in  Walpole's  letters 

(ed.  Mrs.  P.  Toynbee,  1903)  may  be  cited  ii.  173  ;  iv.  381  ; 
vi.  133  ;  ix.  273 ;  xi.  114  and  215. 

276  20     In  some  accounts  of  the  Gordon  riots  the  destruction  of  the 

Roman  Catholic  chapel  is  assigned  to  the  .Sunday  evening. 

277  17     On  15th  December,   1774,  the  treasurer,  W.  Kinleside,  was 

suspended,  and  it  was  decided  to  borrow  ;^5,ooo  at  4  per 
cent,  from  Messrs.  Ladbroke,  Rawlinson,  &  Co.,  to  meet 
the  necessary  expenses  of  both  hospitals.  On  29th  Decem- 
ber, 1774,  Kinleside  was  discharged  from  his  office  and 
struck  off  the  list  of  governors.  On  29th  May,  1775,  a 
committee  made  their  financial  recommendations,  one  of 
which  was  that  the  treasurer  should  give  security  for 
;^5,ooo.  Another  financial  committee  sat  in  1792,  and 
issued  a  very  valuable  report,  which  may  be  read  in  the 
British  Museum,  or  at  Bridewell.  -. 

277  24  The  Rev.  Thomas  Bowen  matriculated  from  Merchant 
Taylors'  School  at  St.  John's  College,  Oxford,  4th  May, 
1766,  at  the  age  of  17  :  he  took  his  B.A.  in  1770,  and  M.A. 
in  1774.  He  succeeded  on  his  matriculation  to  a  fellowship 
at  St.  John's  by  virtue  of  his  school,  where  he  was  third 
undermaster  in  1772  :  in  1774  he  was  elected  reader  and 
schoolmaster  at  Bridewell.  In  1798,  when  he  was  chaplain 
(a  superior  office)  of  Bridewell  and  private  chaplain  to  Sir 
Richard  Carr  Glyn  (our  president  and  the  lord  mayor  of  the 
year),  he  preached  on  the  Thanksgiving  Day  for  the  victory 
of  the  Nile.  He  was  also  chaplain  to  the  Temple  Bar 
Military  Association  (formed  to  resist  the  invasion  by 
Napoleon),  of  which  our  treasurer,  Richard  Clark,  was 
commandant.     Bowen  died  in  1.800. 


NOTES  411 

PAGE     LINE 

278  30  It  appears  from  the  records  in  Chelsea  Hospital  for  1775-1776 
that  Hannah  Snell  was  resident  for  some  years  at  Walsall 
in  Staffordshire,  but  the  town  clerk  has  been  unable  to 
trace  any  account  of  her  residence.  She  is  also  stated  to 
have  lived  with  her  son  (Eyles)  in  Church  Street,  Stoke 
Newington. 

281  21  "A  Tour  to  London,"  translated  by  T.  Nugent,  1772,  from  the 
French  original  by  P.  J.  Grosley  ;  "  Observations  sur 
Londres,"  Franc.  Lacombe,  1777. 

283  19  For  St,  Luke's  (founded  13th  June,  1750,  and  opened  30th 
July,  1751,  in  the  "  Foundry,"  the  scene  of  John  and 
Charles  Wesley's  ministry)  see  ''  A  Short  History  of  St. 
Luke's  Hospital,"  Wm.  Rawes,  M.D.,  the  Medical  Super- 
intendent, 190 1. 

285  I  I  made  a  pilgrimage  to  Pitt  House,  Hampstead,  in  1913,  to 
see  the  two  rooms  which  Lord  Chatham  occupied,  while 
suffering  from  melancholia.  The  ante-room  has  a  door 
with  a  small  hatch  or  cupboard.  His  servant  placed  the 
food  in  the  cupboard  and  then  went  downstairs,  where- 
upon Chatham  opened  the  door  of  the  hatch  or  cupboard, 
and  removed  the  food.  A  picture  of  the  room  will  be 
found  in  Thos.  J.  Barratt's  "Annals  of  Hampstead,"  1912, 
Cf.  also  London  County  Council,  "  Houses  of  Historical 
Interest,"  part  xxv.,  with  authorities  quoted. 


CHAPTER   XXXI 

286  4    According  to  an  anecdote  preserved  in  "  Diaries  of  a  Lady  of 

OuaHty "  (ed.  A.  Hayward,  1864),  "  the  duke  of  Marl- 
borough, when  in  a  state  of  complete  imbecility,  was 
actually  exhibited  by  his  servants  to  all  who  chose  to  give 
an  additional  fee,  after  having  stared  at  all  the  magnificence 
of  Blenheim." 

287  27     I  have  quoted  from  a  life  of  John  Newton  by  the  Rev.  Josiah 

Bull,  i\ 


289  9  I  found  the  story  of  "  Mad  Joe  "  {Joseph  Hill)  at  the  Guildhall 
in  Scrap-book  no.  9 — a  collection  of  newspaper  cuttings, 
etc. 


412  NOTES 

PAGE     LINE 

296  II  For  St.  George's  Fields  consult  "  London  Pleasure  Gardens," 
W.  W.  Wroth,  1896;  "  Old  Southwark,"  W.  Rendle,  1878  ; 
"Inns  of  Old  Southwark,"  W.  Rendle  and  Ph.  Norman, 
1888  ;  collections  of  cuttings,  etc.,  at  Guildhall. 

298  20  To  make  this  thieves'  slang  intelligible,  let  me  explain  a  few 
of  the  words.  "  Rig  "  is  a  lively  froUc  ;  "  blowing,"  a  showy, 
sweetheart ;  "  nutty,"  amorous  ;  "  tips  you  the  turnips," 
throws  you  over  ;  "  sherries,"  runs  away ;  "  stroking," 
stealing  money  from  ;  "  gallows  good,"  awfully  good  ; 
"bilking,"  swindling;  "prig,"  thief.  In  the  last  verse 
"tippy"  is,  up  to  everything  ;  "  rattle,"  a  coach  ;  "she's  the 
stake  "  (while  her  lover  hangs),  she  has  the  stolen  property 
on  her.  According  to  Byron  this  song  was  very  popular  in 
his  day,  and  was  often  sung  by  Wm.  Jackson,  his  teacher 
of  boxing.  Cf.  p.  248,  "  Musa  Pedestris,"  J.  S.  Farmer, 
1896. 

300  2  The  "  Gardner  Collection  "  is  now  in  the  possession  of  Sir 
E.  F.  Coates,  who  is  building  a  house  to  enshrine  his 
treasures.  Students  will  be  grateful  to  him,  if  he  will  make 
them  as  accessible  as  are  the  prints  of  the  Grace  Collection 
in  the  British  Museurn. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 
310     31     Life  of  J.  Gandon,  T.  J.  Mulvany,  1846. 

CHAPTER   XXXIII 

315  2  Details  concerning  the  work  of  Tuke  and  others  will  be  found 
in  "  Chapters  in  the  History  of  the  Insane,"  D.  H.  Tuke, 
1882  :  D.N.B.,  "  Philippe  Pinel,"  Francis  Tiffany,  1898.  It 
was  not  till  the  'forties  that  America  was  driven  to  reform 
her  asylum  system  under  the  lash  of  Miss  Dorothea  Dix  : 
cf.  her  life  by  F.  Tiffany. 

315  15  R.  Gardiner  Hill  (1811-1878) :  appointed  in  1835  resident 
house  surgeon  at  the  Lincoln  Asylum,  where  he  "  literally 
lived  among  his  patients."  He  was,  perhaps,  the  first  to 
carry  out  the  non-restraint  system  on  a  large  scale. 

E.  P.  Charlesworth  (1783-1853):  visiting  physician  to  the 
Lincoln  Asylum  from  1820  :  devoted  himself  to  the  limita- 


NOTES  413 

PAGE     LINE 

tion  of  restraint  and  insisted  on  the  necessity  of  classification 
and  proper  exercise. 

A  genial  memoir  of  John  Conolly  (1794-1866)  will  be  found 
in  the  Journal  of  Mental  Science  for  July,  1866,  by  Henry 
Maudsley.  He  was  resident  physician  at  Hanwell  from 
1839  t<^  1^43  •  ^^'  D.N.B.  and  British  Museum  catalogue. 

315  18  For  the  insanity  of  George  HI  consult  J.  H.  Jesse,  Sir  N. 
Wraxall  ;  "Court  and  Private  Life  of  George  HI,"  Mrs. 
C.  L.  H.  Papendiek,  1887  ;  "  Life  of  Sir  H.  Halford,"  W. 
Munk  ;  Madame  D'Arblay's  "  Diary,"  etc. 

317  6  For  Francis  WilHs  (1717-1807)  and  his  sons  cf.  D.N.B., 
Madame  D'Arblay's  "  Diary,"  etc. 

320  17    Antony  Ashley  Cooper  (1801-1885)  became  the  seventh  earl 

of  Shaftesbury  in  185 1. 

321  24    The  evidence  taken  before  the  parliamentary  committee  may 

be  read  in  "  Report  with  Minutes  of  Evidence,"  arranged  by 
J.  B.  Sharpe,  1815. 

322  II     My  friend,  Mr.  James  Arrow,  writes  to  me  about  the  porter's 

badge  as  follows  : — 

"The  porter's  badge,  which  measures  5|-  inches  by  4^ 
inches,  is  beautifull)^  embossed  and  chased  and  has  in  its 
centre  a  raised  representation  of  the  coat  of  arms  of  the 
hospital  encircled  by  a  laurel  wreath  of  leaves  and  berries, 
tied  at  the  base  by  a  small  ribbon  with  flowing  ends.  The 
hall-marks  are  four  in  number  (denoting  its  origin  to  a  date 
previous  to  1784),  but  the  year-mark  is  not  sufficiently  clear 
to  be  fixed  upon  with  certainty — but  it  looks  remarkably 
like  1686 — a  very  probable  date  for  many  reasons.  The 
rnaker's  mark  is  not  to  be  found  in  Chaffers'  '  London  Hall 
Marks ' — but  the  letters  are  probably  IS.AE,  and  the  name 
is  uncertain.  A  small  space  has  been  filed  down  at  the 
back  and  the  following  engraved  upon  it : — Edward  Dunsion,' 
1782,  in  addition  to  which  in  a  rough  untutored  hand  some 
probable  wearer  of  the  badge  has  scratched  with  a  sharp 
point  the  letters  W.N.H." 

324  13  For  John  Haslam  cf.  D.N.B.  :  W.  Jerdan,  "Autobiography," 
1852  :  Genilema7i's  Magazine,  1844  ;  "  Roll  of  College  of 
Physicians,"  W.  Munk.  An  amusing  sketch  of  George 
Dawe,  who  painted  the  portrait  of  Haslam,  may  be  enjoyed 
in  ch.  xxii.  of  the  "  Life  of  Ch.  Lamb,"  by  E.  V.  Lucas. 


414  NOTES 

PAGE     LINE 

326  7  An  account  of  Thomas  Monro  and  of  his  hospitality  towards 
artists  will  be  found  in  the  "  Life  of  J.  M.  W.  Turner,"  by 
G.  W.  Thornbury. 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

327  4  A  little  biography  of  George  Leman  Tuthill  will  be  found  in 
Mr.  Munk's  ''  Roll  of  the  College  of  Physicians."  Tuthill 
was  an  honourable  gentleman  ;  nothing,  if  not  straight- 
forward. His  manner  was  sententious,  and  his  speech 
leaped  forth  through  his  lips  in  quick,  short  sentences.  He 
was  a  friend  of  Charles  Lamb  and  of  Mary  Lamb,  his  sister, 
and  it  was  he  who  advised  Hoxton  House  in  view  of  her 
recurring  mania.  Charles  Lamb  himself  spent  some  six 
weeks  in  the  same  private  asylum  in  early  life  (1795-1796). 

327  7  Edward  Thomas  Monro  was  the  last  of  his  family  (let  the 
D.N.B.  note)  to  hold  office  in  the  hospital.  After  the  up- 
heaval of  1852  the  governors  dislodged  him  from  the  staff  by 
appointing  him  in  1853  consulting  physician.  He  survived 
the  grant  of  this  shadowy  dignity  for  two  years.  Just  before 
his  death  (in  June,  1855)  he  had  applied  for  a  pension, 
alleging  that  his  private  resources  were  inadequate.  A 
pension  was  eventually  granted  to  the  doctor  (in  January, 
1856),  but  meanwhile  he  had  died.  However,  Mrs.  Monro 
was  awarded  a  gratuity. 

327  ID     For  Lawrence  cf.  D.N.B.  with  authorities  quoted. 

328  18     The  "  bookseller  named  Smith  "  was  probably  the  founder  of 

W.   H.  Smith  &  Son,  who  moved  into  the  Strand  about 
this  period. 

330  25  The  evidence  taken  against  Edward  Wright  in  1830,  with  his 
defence,  will  be  found  in  "  Minutes  of  Evidence  taken  by 
the  Committee  appointed  to  inquire  into  the  Charges  against 
Dr.  Wright,  and  his  Answer."  Reprinted  for  E.  Wright, 
M.D.,  president  of  the  Phrenological  Society  of  London, 
member  of  the  Royal  Medical  Society  of  Edinburgh,"  etc. 
A  copy  of  this  pamphlet  is  preserved  in  the  library  of  the 
College  of  Physicians,  and  another  at  Bridewell. 

330  28  "  The  Report  of  the  Charity  Commissioners  concerning 
Hospitals,"  xxxii.  pt.  vi.,  1837. 


NOTES  415 

PAGE      LINE 

331  3  In  his  "Treatise  on  Madness"  (1758)  Dr.  Battie,  physician  of 
St.  Luke's,  animadverted  on  the  policy  of  Dr.  James  Monro 
in  excluding  medical  pupils  from  the  wards  of  Bethlem. 
Dr.  John  Monro  (his  son)  replied  to  Dr.  Battie  in  a  pamphlet 
of  considerable  asperity  in  the  same  year.  Battie  resigned 
his  place  at  St.  Luke's  in  1774,  and  was  nominated  for  the 
treasurership  of  Bethlem  in  1775. 

331  32     "Bethlehem  Hospital  :  Return  to  the  House  of  Commons," 

December,  1852. 

332  34     William  Wood,  to  whom  we  owe  the  long  panes  of  our  front 

windows,  was  the  author  of  "  Remarks  on  the  Plea  of 
Insanity"  (1851).  It  contains  some  account  of  the  more 
notorious  of  the  criminal  patients.  Dr.  Wood  was  the 
founder  and  sole  proprietor  of  "  The  Priory,"  Roehampton. 
His  son  (Dr.  E.  Ramsden  Wood)  served  the  hospital  as 
assistant  medical  officer  from  1878  to  1885. 

333  6     Dr.   (afterwards   Sir)    Alexander    Morison    (1779-1866)    was 

appointed  physician  to  Bethlehem  Hospital  on  the  decease 
of  Tuthill  7th  May,  1835  •  o^^®  o^  ^^^  earliest  to  give  lec- 
tures, in  1820,  to  pupils  and  others  on  insanity,  he  was  also 
progressive  in  his  views.  He  was,  for  example,  an  original 
member  of  an  "  Association  of  Medical  Officers  from 
Hospitals  for  the  Insane,"  formed  at  Gloucester,  July,  1841. 
The  object  of  the  association  was  to  "  improve  the  manage- 
ment of  asylums  and  the  treatment  of  the  insane."  Each 
year  it  was  their  custom  to  visit  one  or  two  institutions,  and 
afterwards  to  hold  a  meeting  when  papers  were  read  and 
discussed.  The  association  was  very  anxious  to  visit  Bethlem 
in  1843,  but  the  governors  had  already  been  singed  by 
the  blaze  of  publicity,  and  declined  the  pleasure  of  their 
company. 

I  think  there  is  no  doubt  that  nothing  in  the  report  of  the 
parliamentary  committee  could  with  any  justice  reflect  on 
Morison,  who  spared  neither  time  nor  trouble  in  his  treat- 
ment of  our  patients.  Indeed,  the  governors  seem  to  have 
felt  that  they  had  misjudged  his  case  in  coupling  him  with 
Monro,  for  when  he  agreed  to  resign  at  the  age  of  74,  after 
eighteen  years'  service,  fitting  tribute  was  unanimously  paid 
to  his  industry  and  kindness,  and  he  was  awarded  a  pension 
of  ;^i5o  a  year.  I  am  indebted  to  Sir  A.  Morison's  "Cases 
of  Mental  Disease "  and  "  Physiognomy  of  Disease "  for 
some  of  my  remarks  on  Hogarth's  "  Bedlam  "  and  Cibber's 
statues. 


416  NOTES 

PAGE     LINE 

333  21  William  Charles  Hood,  the  son  of  a  doctor,  was  born  in 
S.  Lambeth  in  1824.  Educated  at  Brighton  and  Trinity 
College,  Dublin,  he  entered  at  Guy's  in  the  early  'forties. 
He  commenced  his  professional  career  as  resident 
physician  in  a  private  lunatic  asylum  (Fiddington  House, 
Devizes),  but  was  shortly  afterwards  appointed  first 
medical  superintendent  of  Colney  Hatch,  which  had  been 
recently  erected.  At  a  special  court,  held  12th  June,  1852, 
Dr.  Hood  was  elected  resident  medical  superintendent  of 
■'  Bethlem,  when  he  resigned  the  governorship  which  he  had 

held  since  1849  :  he  seems  to  have  actually  entered  on 
his  duties  4th  November,  1852.  He  resigned  his  appoint- 
ment at  Bethlem  30th  August,  1862,  to  take  up  the  duties 
of  a  Lord  Chancellor's  visitor  for  the  insane.  He  was 
elected  treasurer  of  Bridewell  and  Bethlem  29th  June, 
1868,  and  was  knighted  at  Windsor  7th  July  in  the  same 
year.  The  incessant  work  of  the  two  offices  undermined 
a  constitution  naturally  robust  and  vigorous,  and  he  suc- 
cumbed at  the  treasurer's  house  at  Bridewell  to  an  attack 
of  pleurisy  at  the  early  age  of  45  on  4th  January,  1870. 

333  25  I  hope  that  the  historian  who  corrects  and  continues  my 
work  will  find  time  and  place  for  a  little  biography  of 
George  Henry  Haydon  (1822-1891),  who  was  elected 
steward  in  succession  to  Nathaniel  Nicholls,  4th  April,  1853 
— the  very  day  on  which  one  of  the  governors,  nearly 
twenty  years  in  advance  of  his  day,  suggested  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  convalescent  home  in  the  country  for  our 
patients.  Haydon  was  not  only  the  steward  of  the  hospital, 
but  he  was  also  an  artist  and  a  man  of  literary  gifts.  He 
was  the  author  of  some  Australian  sketches  and  of  other 
papers  of  a  lighter  turn,  and  he  also  contributed  some 
twenty  or  thirty  pictures  to  Punch  between  i86o  and  1863. 
It  may  be  said  of  him  that  he  left  his  mark  on  two  worlds. 
He  was  an  explorer  in  Australia  in  1840,  when  Melbourne 
was  just  a  cluster  of  huts  on  the  north  bank  of  the  Yarra, 
and  little  else.  In  England  (this  was  in  1852)  he  was 
among  the  first  to  originate  the  volunteer  movement  at 
Exeter.  It  was  Haydon  who  presented  to  the  hospital 
most  of  the  plaster  statues  and  statuettes,  which  help  to 
soften  the  severe  lines  of  our  wards.  A  short  account 
of  his  career  will  be  found  in  Under  the  Dome  for  March, 
1892,  and  there  is  a  bundle  of  his  letters  at  Bridewell, 
delightfully  illustrated,  which  would  bear  setting  out  in 
cold  type. 


NOTES  417 

PAGE     LINE 

333  27  I  have  for  the  most  part  relied  on  J.  H.  MacMichael's 
"  Charing  Cross,"  1906,  for  my  pictures  of  Charing  Cross, 
but  the  minute  books  of  the  court  and  committees  have 
corrected  many  of  his  mistakes  and  given  the  finishing 
touches. 

335  10  For  T.  Bish  and  all  that  concerns  lotteries  cf.  "  English 
Lotteries,"  Jno.  Ashton,  1893.  Carrol  &  Co.  at  no.  7, 
Charing  Cross,  and  Swift  &  Co.  at  no.  12,  were  also  lottery 
contractors,  and  are  often  mentioned  in  lottery  literature. 


CHAPTER  XXXV 

Authorities  consulted  for  this  chapter  : — The  minutes  of 
the  court  and  other  committees  of  the  hospital,  the  annual 
reports  of  the  medical  officers.  Dr.  Hood's  pamphlets,  the 
writings  of  D.  Hack  Tuke,  and  "Sketches  in  Bedlam." 


339  25     For  Gozna  and  his  scientific  analysis  of  his  own  statistics,  cf. 

"Dissertation  on  Insanity,"  William  Black,  181 1. 

340  6     In  his  "Memorials  of  St.  James's  Palace"  (1894),  Canon  J.  E. 

Sheppard  has  devoted  a  chapter  (vol.  i.  ch.  xxi.)  to 
"  Eccentric  Visitors  "  at  the  palace.  In  the  same  chapter 
will  be  found  an  illustration  of  the  attack  on  George  III, 
2nd  August,  1786,  by  Margaret  Nicholson  from  an 
engraving  by  Robert  Pollard  of  a  picture  painted  by 
Robert  Smirke.  Margaret  was  confined  in  Bethlem  from 
1786  to  1828. 

343  34  The  titles  of  Dr.  Hood's  pamphlets  will  be  found  in  the 
British    Museum  Library  catalogue. 

345    20    The  story  of  the  well-known  artist  may  be  read  in  the  World 
26th  December,  1877. 

348  5  The  librarian  of  the  Admiralty  library  tells  me  that  the 
Hermione  was  recaptured  from  the  Spaniards  at  Puerto 
Cabello  in  Venezuela  25th  October,  1799,  and  restored  to 
the  navy  under  the  name  of  the  Retribution  ;  he  refers  me 
to  vol.  iv.  of  "The  History  of  the  Royal  Navy,"  Laird 
Clowes,  1899,  and  to  Blackwood's  Magazine  for  April,  1910. 

28 


41 8  NOTES 


CHAPTER  XXXVII 

PAGE     LINE 

365    33     "A    letter   to  the   president,"    1819,   and   "The  chaplaincy 
appointment,"  1820. 

367  28     For  the  evolution  of  Liverpool  Street  out  of  Old  Bethlem, 

I  have  studied  the  court  books  and  old  leases  of  the 
hospital,  William  Maitland's  "  History  of  London  "  (vol.  ii. 
p.  795,  in  ed.  1756),  and  "London  and  Westminster/' 
Richard  Horwood,  1799. 

368  25    The   whole,   or  part,   of    the   site   of    Broad    Street   station 

belonged  to  Bethlehem  Hospital  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Portions  of  this  ground,  however,  appear  to  have  been 
alienated  from  time  to  time,  and  in  1569  the  city  appro- 
priated an  acre  of  it  (presumably  the  burial  ground  of 
the  convent)  as  a  burial  ground  for  strangers.  This  burial 
ground  would  seem  to  be  represented  by  the  western  side 
of  the  station,  inasmuch  as  the  North  London  Railway 
Company  had  to  purchase  this  part  of  the  estate  from 
the  city  :  the  rest  of  the  area  was  bought  from  individual 
owners. 

368  30  The  lease  of  our  Staple  Hall  estate  granted  by  Mewtys  in 
1536  may  be  inspected  at  Bridewell.  In  that  year  the 
property  consisted  of  a  cottage — in  a  state  of  ruin  and 
decay — together  with  a  garden.  Monastic  property  was 
hardly  worth  keeping  in  good  repair  in  the  crisis  of  the 
dissolution  of  religious  houses.  However  John  Stryng- 
fellow  was  ready  to  rebuild  the  cottage,  and  to  enclose  the 
'  garden  with  a  brick  wall.  He  was,  therefore,  granted  a 
lease  of  ninety-nine  years  at  a  yearly  rental  of  thirteen 
shillings  and  four  pence.  This  cottage — the  Society  of 
Friends  will  be  interested  to  know — lay  betVv^een  the 
tenement  of  one  William  Parker  on  the  north  and  the 
great  messuage  called  "The  Dolphin"  on  the  south. 
Parker,  I  think,  was  a  speculator  in  Church  property. 
On  the  east  Stryngfellow's  garden  abutted  on  the  land 
of  the  dissolved  priory  of  St.  Mary  Spital,  the  cottage 
fronting  Bishopsgate  Street. 


INDEX 


Adams  (J.),  apothecary,  373 

Agas    (R.),   his   map   of   Charing 

Cross,  120 
Aldgate,  Priory  of  Holy  Trinity,  5, 

30,  377,  396 
Alien  priories,  53-55,  384 
Allen  (Edward),  keeper,  father  of 
Edward  AUeyne,  130,  131,  141 
Allen    (Thomas),   physician,    191, 

220,  372,  394 
Allen  (William),  130,  131 
Alleyne  (Edward),  actor,  131 
Anatomy  of  Melanclioly,   The,  147, 

161-163 
Arderne  (J.),  surgeon,  64,  385 
Arms  of  Bethlehem  Hospital,  Pre- 
Reformation  and  Post-Refor- 
mation, 15,  60,  102-105,  208 
Arundell  (J.),  master,  91,  92,  234, 

319,  388 
Atherton  (E.),  master,  89,  387 
Audeley  (Lady  E.),  a  patient,  171- 

176,  398 
Audley  (James  de),  49,  58 
Autenrieth    (Professor),     inventor 

of  the  "  padded  room,"  362 

Baker  (D.),  treasurer,  223 
Banham   (W.    de),   prior,    33-35, 

381 
Barkham  (Edward),  a  benefactor, 

25,  243,  244,  406 
Barkham  Terrace,  294 


Barnes  (Dr.  R.),  suitor  for  master- 
ship, no 
Barnett  (G.),  a  patient,  348 
Basketmen,     see     Keepers     (male 

attendants) 
Bate  (Walter),  master,  96,  389 
Battie  (W.),  physician  of  St.  Luke's 

Hospital,  415 
Beadle's  staff,  An  account  of  the, 

206,  401,  402 
Beauchamp  (John),  58 
Beauchamp  (William  de),  33 
Bedlam,  as  a  place-name,  243,  406 
*'  Bedlam,"  as  a  term  of  abuse,  107- 

109,  145 
Bedlam,    Bethlem,     Bethalem, 

Betleem,  etc.  ;  see  Bethlehem 

Hospital 
Bedlam  Broke  Loose,  217-219 
"  Bedlam,"  painted  and  engraved 

by  Hogarth,  see  Hogarth 
Bethlehem  Cross,  65,  385 
Bethlehem  Hospital,  the  first,  built 

in  Bishopsgate    Without,    16- 

201 
Bethlehem   Hospital,  the  second, 

built  in  Moorfields,    202-292, 

312,    313,    314,  320-322,  324- 

326,  340,  364,  401 
Bethlehem    Hospital,     the    third, 

built    in  St.  George's   Fields, 

South wark,   292-294,  302-310, 

327-333,  342-367,  369,  370 


419 


425 


INDUX 


Bethlehem  (Palestine),  Basilica  of, 
2,  5)  6-9»  13)  20-24,  loO;  loi. 
377,  378 

Bishops  of, 

I,  2,  3,  4,  7,  13,  15,  16,  21,  50, 

51,  377,  378,  379,  380,  383 

■Brothers  of, 


3,  4>  7,  9-15,  33,  34,  47,  48,  51, 
59,  100,  377,  378,  382,  383 

—History  of, 


I,  2,  6-8,  12,  13,  17,  378 

Monastery 


of,  3,   7,  8,  12,   13,    100,  377, 

378 
Bethlehem's  Beauty ^  210,  211 
Bethlem,  a  poem,  237 
Bettinson  (G.  S.),  matron,  372 
Bishopsgate,  Within  and  Without, 

16,  31,  36,  38,  60,  84,  85,  92, 

93,97,98,  106,   131,   155,  179, 

189,  215,  389 
Bishopsgate    Without,   Parish    of 

St.   Botolph,  16,  17,  19,  20,  32, 

33,  34,  35,  39,  47,  48,  5^,  57, 
141,  142,  145,  151,  153,  154, 
155,  165,  182,  183,  191,  194, 
198,  367,  368,  390,  396 

Black  Death,  disastrous  to  hos- 
pital, 49 

Blackstone  (R.),  surgeon,  373 

Boleyn  (George),  Viscount  Roch- 
ford,  master,  109,  no,  114, 
208,  390 

Bolton  (Sir  W.),  a  governor,  191, 
212,  2T3,  403 

Borrow  (G.),  275,  409,  410 

Bowen  (Rev.  T.),  his  Historical 
Account,  277,  278,  283,  312, 
410 

Bowes  (Sir  M.),  112,  390 

Bradelay  (John  de),  rector  of  St. 
Botolph' s,  Bishopsgate,  47,  48, 

383 
Breton  (N.),  author  of  The  Forte 

of  Fancie,  146,  147,  395 


Brid,  or  Bird  (J.),  35,  382  ;  see  also 
"Dolphin  "inn 

Bridewell  Hospital,  54,  68,  106, 
114, 119, 123-130, 137, 143, 144, 
145,151,153,158,159,166,167, 
179,  181, 193,  206,  209,  216,217, 
227,  236,  240,  244, 249, 263, 277, 
278,  326, 330, 391, 393,  396, 397, 
398,  402,  410 

Brief,   issued   by   Elizabeth,    124, 

393 
Bright  (Dr.  T.),  author,  132, 164, 393 

Broadmoor  Asylum,  345,  354 

Broad  Street  station,  141,  142, 384, 

418 

Brown  (John),  master,  96,  389 

Brown    (R.),   assistant  physician, 

371 
Brown    (Tom),   author,   240,  241, 

406 
Bunyan  (J.),  Insanity  of,  184-186, 

399 
Burke  (Edmund),   Caricature    of, 
284,  409 

Campion  Family,  The,  153,  368 
Carcas  (J.),  a  patient,  219-222 
Carpenter   (John),    a    benefactor, 

90 
Catlett  (Elizabeth),  a  patient,  287, 

288,  411 
Cavalari  (J.),  master,   15,  100,  106, 

389 
Certiorari,  writ  of,  54 

Changeling,  The,  158,  395 

Chantries,  81,  387 

Chapel  of  the  first  hospital,  The, 

44,  45,  47,  48,  52,  56,  57,  59, 

60,  76,  81,  84,  89,  141,  390 
Charing  Cross  Estate,  66-68,  1 14- 

122,    179,    180,    191,    333-338, 

391,  392,  417 
Charity  Commission  of  1837,  The, 

125,   330,   356,  357,  385,  393, 
414 


INDEX 


421 


Charles  I,   157,  164-167,   168,   176, 

179-181,  397 
— II,  180,  195,  203,  204,  208, 

213,  222,  223,  340,  404 
Charles  worth      (E.     P.),     lunacy 

reformer,  315,  412 
Charters,     see    Henry    VIII     and 

Charles  I 
Chatham  (Lord),  his  melancholia, 

283-285,  411 
"  Chequer "     inn,     The,    Charing 

Cross,  115,  116,   117,   119,  120, 

i9i>  334.  392 
Chircheman  (R.),  proctor,  54,  384 

Cibber  (C.  G.),  sculptor  ;  see  Statues 
of  Mania  and  Dementia 

City  assumes  control  of  first  hos- 
pital, 11,37-44 

Clamecy,  France,  3,  7,  15,  50-52, 

378 
Clark  (E.  G.),  head  attendant,  372 
"  Coach  and  Horses  "  inn.  Charing 

Cross,  formerly  the  "Chequer," 

120,  334,  392 
ColHns  (W.),  poet,  274,  286,  409 
Commission    of    1632    and    1633, 

165-167,  397 
"  Concealed    lands,"    Significance 

of,  118 
Confraternity     of     St.     Mary     of 

Bethlehem,  45,  47,  91,  99-101, 

383,  389 
Conolly  (J.),  lunacy  reformer,  315, 

413 
Copeland  (Lt.-Col.  A.  J.),  treasurer, 

125,  402 
Corner  (H.),  medical  officer,  374 
Corpus   Christi,  Confraternity  of, 

59-61 
Corrodies,  59,  384 
Counterfeit  Cranke,  The,  135-137 
Country  Spy,  The,  264,  265 
Court  Books,  The,  125,   126,   128, 

129,    130,   156,   189,   192,  193, 

240,  395,  398,  399,  402,  406 


Craig  (M.),  medical  officer,  374 
Criminal  establishment,  The,  339- 

348,  417 
Cromwell  (O.),  176,  180-188,  398, 

399 
Crooke  (Dr.  H.),  Keeper,  156-160, 

164-168,  372,  396,  397 
Crosby  (Sir  J.),  a  benefactor,  94, 

388 
Crowther    (Bryan),   surgeon,   321, 

373 
(Richard),  surgeon,  373 

Croydon  (John  of),  a  benefactor, 

25;  45 
Cunningham  (J.    F.),    ophthalmo- 
logist, 372 

Dale  (R.),  master,  89,  387 
Daniel,   Cromwell's    porter,    186- 

188,  192,  399 
D'Arcy  (John),  58 
Davies  (Lady  E.),  see  Audeley 
Davyson  (J.),  master,  96,  389 
Defoe  (D.),  232,  233,  400 
Dekker  (T.),  dramatist,  145,  148- 

152,  393 
De  Londres  et  de  ses  environs,  266, 

282,  283,  408 
Denton  (R.),  69,  70,  385 
Devonshire  House,  153,  154,  155, 

368,  396,  400 
Devonshire  House  Estate,  Bishops- 
gate,    see    Staple     Hall,    and 

Friends,  Society  of 
Deynman  (T.),  master,  97,  389 
Dickenson  (W.),  apothecary,  373 
Dix     (Dorothea),     her     work     in 

American  asylums,  243,  412 
"  Dog  and    Duck "   tavern,    The, 

296-301,  307,  412 
"Dolphin"    inn.   The,    151,    153, 

179'  396*  418  ;  see  also  Staple 

Hall,  and  Brid 
Doncaster  (Brother   Thomas   of), 

prior,  381 


422 


INDEX 


Douglas  (Lady  E.),  see  Audeley 
Drapers'    Company,    45-47,    289, 
290,    383  ;    see    also    Confra- 
ternity 
Du  Cane  (B.),  treasurer,  223,  224, 

404 
Dugdale  (Sir  W.),  herald,  102,  208 
Dunning's  Alley,  Bishopsgate,  17, 

20,  31,  165,  380 
Dunstall  (J.),  artist,  204 

Earthquake,   The,    see    Military 

Prophet 
Edward  I,  4,  67,  382 

11,  36,  382 

Ill,  13,  53,  54,  58,  68,  74, 

382,  384,  385 

IV,  6,  389 

VI,  115,  117,  118,  126,  141, 


391 
Elderton  (W.),  apothecary,  373 
Elizabeth,  36,  118,   119,   120,   122, 

124,  125,  126 
Evans  (A.),  surgeon,  372 
Evelyn  (J.),  182,  197,  202,  399 
Exemption  from  taxes,  181,  398 
Exorcism,  60,  61,  70-72,  74,  86,  87, 

387 

Farnham  (R.),  a  patient,  169,  170, 

397 
Fire   of   London,   The,    192,    193, 

197;  399 
FitzMary     (Simon),     founder     of 

Bethlehem    Hospital,    5,    10, 

16-32,  36,  377,  380,  381 

Fitz  Osbert  (W.),  reformer,  30-32 

Forster  (S.),  a  benefactor,  90,  387 

Foundation    deed   of    1247,   The, 

19-22,  85,  380 

Four  Dialogues  of  the  Dead,  187 

Fox    (Charles   J.),    Caricature   of, 

257>  409 
Fox,   (G.),  quaker,  184,    186,    187, 

399 


Franciscans  at   Bethlehem,   2,  7, 

8,378 
Freton  (Roger  de),  prior,  51,  383 
Friends  (Society  of),  36,  151,  184, 
186,  322,  323,  369,  396,  403, 
418 ;  see  also  Staple  Hall, 
Devonshire  House,  and 
"  Dolphin  "  inn 

Gaddesden  (John  of),  physician, 

64,  385 
Gandon   (J.),   architect,   310,   312, 

412 
Gandy  (E.  J.),  architect,  309-312 
Gardyner  (J.),  master,  55,  384 
George  HI,  315-320,  340,  342,  409, 

413 
Geryn  (J.),  35,  382 
Gethin  (G.),  treasurer,  193 
"Goat"     tavern,     The,  '  Charing 

Cross,  180,  191 
Godfrey,  bishop  of  Bethlehem,  2, 

3,  4,  10,  16,  21,  22,  377,  378, 

379>  380 
"  Golden  Cross"  inn,  The,  Charing 

Cross,  121,  334,  336 
Golightly  (J.),  115,  ii7>  118,  391 
Gordon  Riots,  The,  275,  276,  410 
Government   of   the   hospital,  43, 

44,  55,  58,  9O5   112,  123,  240, 

390,  392 
Gower  (J.),  poet,  90,  387 
Gozna  (J.),   apothecary,  339,   373, 

417 
Grafton  (R.),  master  of  Bridev^ell, 

125,  126,  127,  393 
Green  Cloth,  Board  of,  231,  340, 

405,  417 
Greene  (A.),  a  patient,  394 
Gregory   (W.),    a   benefactor,   91, 

387 
Grosley   (P.   J.),    French    tourist, 

231,  281,  411 

Guy  (T,),  and  Guy's  Hospital,  231, 

232,  264,  322,  405 


INDEX 


423 


Hadfield  (J.),  a  patient,  348,  417 
Hale  (R.),  physician,  234,  235,  372, 

405 
Hardwick   (Philip),    the   younger, 

architect,  305,  335,  337,  338 
Harlequin  Methodist,  253,  407 
Harman  (T.),  author,  see  Counter- 
feit Cranke,  The 
Haslam  (J.),  apothecary,  313,  314, 

324-326,  346,  373,  413 
Haydon  (G.  H.),  steward,  333,  416 
Helps    (W.),    resident    physician, 

359»  366,  373 
Henry  HI,  16,  20,  27-30,  74,  382 

IV,  19,  66,  75,  88,  386,  387 

VI,  89,  91,  92,  96,  319,  387, 

388,  389 

VII,  66,  68,  97,  389 

VIII,    106,   108,    109,   no. 


III,    112,   114,   115,    118,  207, 

208,   277,   278,  310,  333,  389, 

390,  402 
Hervy  (T.),  master,  96,  389 
Higgs  (E.),  surgeon,  373 
Higgs  (J.),  surgeon,  373 
Hill  (R.  G.),  lunacy  reformer,  315, 

412 
Hobbs  (William),  master,  96,  389 
Hogarth  (W.),  his  "  Bedlam,"  236, 

237.  244-249,  407 
Hollar  (W.),  his  view  of  the  first 

hospital,  195,  196 
Honest  Whore,  The,  148-15 1 
Hood     (Sir     W.      C),      resident 

physician,  333,  343,  344,  346, 

353,  354,  359,  373,  416,  417 
Hooke      (R.),     architect     of     the 

second  hospital,  197,  199,  287, 

400 
Howard     (John),     philanthropist, 

312,  364 
Hughes  (C),  anaesthetist,  372 
Humby  (H.),  steward,  329 
Hutton  (W.),  his  visit  to   Bedlam, 

260,  408 


Hye-way  to  the  Spytiel  House,  The, 

109 
Hyslop  (T.  B.),  resident  physician, 

373,  374 

Incurable  Wards,  The,  244,  277, 

406 
Innocent  IV,  1-5,  13,  16,  21,  377, 

378 
Insane  patients   transferred  from 

Charing  Cross   to  Bethlehem 

Hospital,  65,  67,  68 
Insane,  Treatment  of  the,  69,  90, 

91,  132-134,  143,  144,  147,  149, 
156,  160,  168,  182,  183,  225, 
236-240,   243,   263,    265,   266, 

282,  320-324,    350,    351-358. 

393 
Insanity,  Treatment  of,  60,  61,  69, 
70-72,   74,  81,  86-88,  98,  99, 
107,  129,    156,   163,   164,  166, 
224,   225   234,   23s,  256,   257, 

283,  307,  315,  317,  318,  347, 
352,  353,  357,  385,  393 

Interior  of  Bethlehem  Hospital,  The, 
328,  329 

James  I,  68,  118,  119, 152,  156,  157, 
158,  160,  235,  391,  396 

II,  203,  219,  224,  404,  405 

James  (J.),  apothecary,  373 
Jenner  (T.),  Keeper,  156,  396 
John  the  Roman,  1-3,  7,  377,  378 
Johnson   (Dr.   S.),   268,    269,   271, 

273,  274,  275,  297,  368,  409 
Jordan  (T.),  city  laureate,  202,  400 

Keeper,  The,  128,  130,  136,  143, 
144,  156,  166,  167,  393 

Keepers,  or  male  attendants,  70, 
71,  88,  107,  144,  149,  150,  152, 
158,  160,  168,  182,  220,  224, 
236,  263,  282,  283,  307,  317' 
318,321,322,346,350,357 


424 


INDEX 


Kempthorne     (H.     L.),     medical 

officer,  374 
King    and   the    city,   Controversy 

between  the,  55,  58,  160,  161, 

168,  195,  384 
King  Edward's  School  for  Girls, 

292,  294,  306,  311,  366 
King's  Commissioners,  The,  223, 

224 
Kinleside  (W.),  treasurer,  277,  410 
Knave  of  Clubs,  The,  146,  395 
Knights    of   the    Star,    possibly   a 

military  order,  11,  14,  15,  37, 

378,  379 
Knollys  (Francis),  a  governor,  his 
gift  of  a  picture,  402 

Lacombe  (F.),  French  tourist,  281, 

411 
Lamb    (Charles   and    Mary),   335, 

348,  398,  413,  414 
Langland    (W.),    his    description 

of  wandering  lunatics,  65,  66, 

385 
Langley  (R),   steward,    171,   177, 

178 
Lawrence  (Sir  W.),  surgeon,  327, 

328,  373,  414 
Lee    (Nathaniel),    dramatist    and 

patient,  227-231^  405 
Lester  (J.),  apothecary,  221,  373 
Letters      written      to      Particular 

Friends,  242 
Lewis  (J.),  architect,  287,  289,  290, 

309*  310 
Licences  to  collect  alms,  3,  13,  14, 

36,  39,  48,  54,  J2»  74»  75 »  124, 
138,  386,  387,  393,  394 

Lincoln  (R.),  master,  58,  75,  78, 
84,  384,  386 ;  see  also  Visita- 
tion, and  Peter,  the  porter 

Liverpool  Street,  17,  20,  31,  32, 
141,  142,  165,  191,  193-195, 
198,  200,  201,  360,  361,  367, 
368,  399,  418  ;  see  also  Beth- 


lehem    Hospital,     the     first. 

White      Hart     tavern,      and 

Broad  Street  station 
London  Scenes  and  London  People, 

286 
Lovell  (C),  pathologist,  371 
Low  Life,  261-264 
Lucida  hitervalla,  220-222 
Lunacy  Commissioners,  320,  331, 

332,  333,  343>  353 
Lupton  (D.),  author,  160,  396 


"Mad  Joe,"  289,  411 
Marlborough,  The  duke  of,   286, 

411 
Marriages,    Irregular     celebration 

o£,  78,  79,  148 
Martin  (A.  H.),  steward,  372 
Mary  I,  117,  119,  155,391 
Matron,  The,  190,  332 
Matthews  (J.  T.),   a   patient,   313, 

314 
Maudesley  (T.)  master,  97,  389 

Mawere  (H.),  attendant,  88 

Medical  officers,  past  and  present, 

371-374 
Medical  pupils,  331 
Mell  (J.),  keeper,  128 
Memoirs  of  De  Castro,  312 
Meredith  (J.),  surgeon,  178,  373 
Metcalf  (U.),  a  patient,  328,  329 
Methodism     associated    with    in- 
sanity, 237,  247,  255-257,  407, 
408 
Metronymics,    Significance   of,   5, 

377 
Meverall  (O.),  physician,  169,  178, 

372,  397 
Mews,  The,  Charing  Cross,  69,  114, 

115,  121,  333,  391 
Mewtys  (Sir  P.),  master,  no,  114, 

115.  151.  390 
Micrologia,  396 

Mikrokosmographia,  see  Crooke 


INDEX 


425 


Military   Prophet,   The,  258,   259, 

408 
MoUison  (W.  M.),  aurist,  372 
Monck  (Lady),  155,  189,  400 
Money-box  figures,  205,  206 
Monro  (Edward  Thomas),   physi- 
cian, 327,  333,  365,  372,  414 

(James),  physician,  245,  254, 

257»  263,331,372,415 
(John),  physician,  240,  261, 

283,  372,  415 

(Thomas),   physician,  316, 


321,  324.  326,  372,  414 
Moorfields,    16,  34,  126,  129,  202, 

242,   252,   253,   259,  263,  276, 

286,  400,  411 
More  (Sir  Thomas),  106,  107,  390 
Morison    (Sir   A.),  physician,  333, 

372,  415 

Nativity,  Church  of    the,    see 

Bethlehem,  Basilica  of 
Newton  (Rev.  J.),  see  Catlett 
Nicholls  (N.),  steward,  330,  333 
Norris  (J.),  a  patient,  320,  321 
'Northward  Ho  /  151 
Norton  (Brother  John  M.),  37-41, 

55,  384 
Nurse   (T.),   physician,    186,    190^ 

372 
Nurses,  224,  240,  263-266,  331 

Obituaries,  The  Book  of,  45,  46, 

383 
O'Donoghue  (E.  G.),  chaplain  and[ 

historian,  372 

Oxford  (E.),  a  patient,  345 

Padded  Rooms,  362 

Paris  (M.),  chronicler,  4,    10,    16, 

104,  377,  378,  379 
Parish  Clerks'   Company,  61,  141, 

394 
Parliamentary     Committees,    321, 

413 


Paulet  (Lord  John),  153 

Pauper   patients   eliminated,  353, 

354 
Pelhng  (J.),  apothecary,  373 
Pepys  (S.),  190,  191,  192,  213,  219- 

222,  400,  404 
Periam    (J.),  a   patient,   253,   254, 

407 
Peter,  the  porter,  75-84,  168 
Phillips  (J.  G.  P.),  assistant  physi- 
cian, 371,  372 
Pindar  (Sir  Paul),  168,  397 
Pinel    (Dr.    Philippe),    lunacy  re- 
former, 323,  324,  412 
Plague  of  London,  The,  192,  400 
Porter's  badge.  The,  322,  413 
"  Possession,"  see  Exorcism 
Private  asylums,  232,  233 
"  Protection  "   documents,  36,  74, 
75,  382 

Quince  (J.),  surgeon,  166 

"  Rake's  Progress,  A,"  see  Hogarth 
Rawlins     (John),    treasurer,     179, 

398 
Rawlinson  family,  249,  407,  410 
Rayner  (H.),  medical  officer,  374 
Registers  of  St.  Botolph's,  Bishops- 
gate,  128,  130,   143,  153,  192, 

394 
Religious  services  instituted,  364- 

367,  418 
Richard  II,  55,  58,  59,  68,  82,  384, 

385,  386 
Richardson      (S.),     his     Familiar 

Letters,  242 
Roman  London,  19,  202,  380,  400 

Saint  Bartholomew's  Hospital, 
32,  109,  III,  112, 132,  143,  156, 
226,  245,  259,  264,   265,  331, 

398 

George's  Fields,  290,  291, 

292,  294-301,  412 


426 


INDEX 


Saint  George's  Hospital,  245,  264 

Germains,    East   Lothian, 

10,  15,  378 

Guthlac,   exorcist,   86,  87, 

386 

John  of  Jerusalem,  Order 

of,  10,  II,  12,  14 

Luke's  Hospital,  240,  283, 

309,  318,  322,   353,   355,   362, 
364,411 

Mary's    Hospital,   Norton 


Folgate,  39,  382,  383 

■■ Thomas's    Hospital,    iii, 

124,    156,   226,  264,  265,  331, 

398 
"  Sally  in  our  Alley,"  242,  406 
Sambrooke  (S.),  surgeon,  373 
Savage  (Sir  G.  H .),  resident  physi- 
cian, 373,  374 
Scot   (R.),  author  of  Demotiologie, 

152,  396 
Seals  of  the  hospital,  94,  loi,  102, 

388 
Settle  (E.),  city  laureate,  226 
Suggested  segregation  of  the,  183, 

190,  210 
Sey  (E.),  surgeon,  166 
Shaftesbury,  The  seventh  earl  of, 

168,  320,  343,  413 
Shakespeare    (W.)  and    insanity, 

132,  133,   145,   148,    153,   154, 

393 
Shepherd's  Bush  estate,  179,  193, 

398 
Skelton  (J.),  poet,  108,  109,  390 
Sketches  in  Bedlam,  345-348 
Skinners'     Company,     59-61,    63, 

384 ;    see  also    Confraternity. 
Smart   (Christopher),    poet,    266- 

271,  409 
Smeethe  (J.),  master,  96,  389 
Smirke  (Sydney),  architect  of  the 

dome,  303,  304 
Smith  (R.  P.),  resident  physician, 

373.  374 


Snell    (Hannah),    female    marine, 

278-281,  411 
Spira      (F.),      melancholiac,      see 

Bunyan 
Stafford  (R.),  a  patient,  241,  242, 

406 
Staple  Hall  estate,  31,  35,  36,  66, 

151,    153,   166,   179,  368,  369, 

382,418;  see  also  Devonshire 

House,  and  Friends,  Society 

of 
Star   of    Bethlehem,    in   heraldry 

and  otherwise,  10,  15,  40,  103, 

104,  105,  378 
Statues  of   Mania  and  Dementia, 

204,  205,  269,  349,  401,  415 
Stevens    (T.     G.),    gynaecologist, 

372 
Stoddart     (W.    H.    B.),    resident 

physician,  371,  374 
Stone   House,   see  Charing  Cross 

estate 
Stow  (John),  his  references  to  the 

hospital,  67,  69,  385 
Stryngfellow    (J.)     a     tenant     of 

''Staple  Hall,"  151,418 
"  Surveyors  of    Bethlehem,"   123, 

128 
Swanlond  (R.  de),  lessee  of    the 

hospital,  33,  35,  381 
Swift  (Dean  J.),  a  governor,  249- 

251,  269,  407 

Talman  (C),  surgeon,  373 
Tannye  (T.),  a  patient,  171,  397 
Tavern  tokens,  183,  399 
Taverner,  see  Peter 
Thamar  (J.),   a  patient,  211,  241, 

403 
Theodosius,  his  infirmary  for  the 

insane,  378 
Thomas  (J.),  apothecary,  373 
Todd  (F.),  dentist,  372 
Tom    o'    Bedlam,    128,    132-140, 

393;  394 


INDEX 


427 


Trafalgar    Square,    ste    Charing 

Cross  estate 
Tuke  (D.  H.),  writer  on  insanity, 

362,  393,  412 
Tuke  (W.),  lunacy  reformer,  168, 

322,  323,  412 
Turner  (Sir  W.),   president,    196, 

207,   209,   214-217,    218,   224, 

402,  403 
Tuthill  (Sir  G.  L.),  physician,  327, 

365,  372,  414 
Tyson    (E.),    physician,   25,   224- 

228,  229,  232,  372,  404,  405 
Tytte  (Brother  William),  master, 

45,  54  (?)>  55,  80 

Urban  V,  49,  383 

"Views,"   or  inspections,   of  the 

hospital,  143,  144,  394 
Visitation,  The,  by  Henry  IV,  69, 

75-85,  380,  385 
Visiting  Days,   144,  145,  148-150, 

151,    182,    183,   209,   235-242, 

260,  282,  405,  406 

Wallett    (G.),    apothecary,   329, 

373 
Walpole  (Horace),  258,  275,  410 
Walsh  (P.),  a  patient,  348,  417 
Ward  (Edward),  author,  229,  238, 

240,  241 
Welles  (W.),  claims  the  master- 
ship, 14,  55,  58,  379 


Wentworth  (W.),  surgeon,  373 
Wesley  (John),  255-257,  408,  411 
Wheeler  (C),  surgeon,  373 
Wheeler  (J.),  surgeon,  373 
White  (R.),  engraver,  203,  401 
"White   Hart"    tavern.   Bishops- 
gate,  82,  145, 182, 183, 194,395 
Whitefield     (G.),    revivalist,    253, 

254,  407 
Whitmore  (Sir  G,),  president,  171, 

179,  398 
William  HI,  224,  241,  340 
Williams     (W.      Rhys),     resident 

physician,  359,  373 
Willis   (Rev.   Dr.),  and   his   sons, 

317,  318,  413 
Wills,  78,  382,  383,  387,  388,  391 
Winder  (J.),  apothecary,  259,  373 
Witches  and  witchcraft,  152,  396 
Wolsey  (Cardinal),  106,  109 
Wood  (T.),  a  tenant    at  Charing 

Cross,  114,  117,  119,  121,  391 
Wood  (W.),  apothecary,  332,  333, 

373,  415 

Wood  (W.  E.  R.),  medical  officer, 

374,  415 

Worsfold   (J.    L.),   clerk  and   re- 
ceiver, 372 
Wright  (E.),  apothecary,  330,  346, 

373,  414 

Yardley    (R.),   apothecary,    178, 

373 
Yelverton  (Sir  H.),  attorney-gene- 
ral, 160,  161,  396 


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